|
Archive for July, 2008
MINISTERIAL SEDUCTION
by Sherri L. Lewis
Chapter One
“Quite honestly, Ms. Banks, if you’re not able to bring all your course grades up to a B average by the end of the semester, I’m afraid you’re going to have to withdraw from the Master’s program.”
Keeva Banks stared at her counselor, watching her cheap, red lipstick bleed into the little wrinkles around her lips. It was almost as if she was mesmerized by the words coming out of her mouth.
She wasn’t.
She knew this was coming. It was just a matter of when. Even still, hearing it out loud…
Keeva grabbed a lock of hair and twisted it around her finger.
Ms. Parker pulled a green file folder from her desk with Keeva’s name printed on the corner and began flipping through the papers in it. “I’ve received progress reports from each of your professors and I have to tell you, things don’t look good.” Ms. Parker’s voice faded into a droning tone like the adult characters on a Charlie Brown cartoon. “Waa wa wa wa…”
Keeva fastened her eyes on Ms. Parker’s clothes. She had to focus on something – anything – other than her impending doom to make it through this meeting without falling apart.
Her blouse was made of some cheapy, chintzy fabric with wide, horizontal brown and beige stripes. How could she have thought it matched the completely different shade of brown of her shapeless skirt? And didn’t she know someone with her figure, or lack thereof, should never wear horizontal stripes? Not to mention that her skin was too sallow to wear brown anyway.
Keeva looked at her own tailored Donna Karan pantsuit. The rich, burgundy color accented her cocoa brown skin perfectly. She had dressed carefully that morning, knowing she’d need to look good in light of the news she was about to receive.
She made her eyes go back to Ms. Parker’s face, not wanting to appear rude.
“From what I understand, so far this semester you’ve made, at best, C’s on your exams and you still haven’t completed the project for your Research Methods class.”
Ms. Parker paused as if waiting for Keeva to speak.
No way she could answer without her voice shaking. Or worse still, her bursting into tears. She nodded slowly, hoping that would be a sufficient response.
Ms. Parker’s closet of an office seemed to be shrinking. And did they have the heat turned up in this part of the building? Keeva pressed her hand down on her knee to stop her leg from bouncing. She rubbed her sweaty palms on her pantsuit.
“I have to ask, Ms. Banks, do you really want this degree?”
Keeva almost laughed. What difference did it make what she wanted?
She sat up straight and pasted on a camera-pleasing smile. “Of course I want this degree. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” She hoped she sounded more convincing than she felt.
For the first time, and only for a minute, she thought about it. Did she want a master’s in Professional Counseling?
How could she help anyone when she didn’t have the answers? Keeva imagined herself counseling people, passing them tissue when they cried, patting their arms and giving them understanding looks in that annoying, empathetic way; bandaging them up to send them back into life to be bruised all over again. What was the point?
Would she ever really change anyone’s life?
Ms. Parker stood, came around to the front of her desk and leaned against it.
Keeva watched her hips spread out wide across the wooden edge. She sat back a little. Oh dear. Here comes the heart to heart.
“Ms. Banks, is there something going on that you need to talk about? A problem affecting your academic performance?”
Keeva mustered her last bit of emotional stability to paste on another smile. “No, Ms. Parker. There’s nothing going on. Thank you for your concern, though.”
And that was the worst part about it. There was nothing she could blame this on. She was healthy, all her needs were met; she had supportive parents, plenty of friends and a wonderful boyfriend.
Her life was…perfect.
All she had to do was get this stupid degree, start her career, get married, have 2.5 children, buy a Volvo and a home in an exclusive neighborhood and live out the rest of her years in Utopian suburbia.
What more could she ask?
She reached down to pick up her Coach briefcase and stood. She had to get out of the office before she erupted. “I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.”
That much was true. The last graduate program she flunked out of just sent a “warning” letter in the mail. It pretty much said get it together or else. Else had landed her here at Georgia State University.
Keeva flipped her hair over her shoulder and smoothed out her suit. “I assure you I’ll do everything I can to pull it together. Things will be better by the end of the semester.”
At least I hope.
***
Midtown Atlanta was a blur as Keeva drove to her apartment building. She couldn’t wait to get upstairs to the haven she had created for herself. She loved her one-bedroom loft. The airy openness of it gave her room to breathe. The large floor-to-ceiling windows let in abundant sunlight that kept her numerous plants flourishing. The designer yellow paint gave the room a happy feeling and was further brightened by the red, leather couch. Her place had an interior design magazine, art-deco feel to it.
Keeva winced as she imagined losing her apartment. She’d been there since her senior year at Spelman College. She and her boyfriend, Mark, then a senior at Morehouse, had picked it out together for her. If she flunked out again, her parents would withdraw their financial support and her penthouse loft, luxury car, and generous allowance would all be gone. There was no way her dad would call in another favor to get her into another graduate program.
Keeva dropped her briefcase off at the dining room table, ignoring the books there, begging to be read. She had to study, but needed to get rid of the heaviness that had been riding her since she stepped into Ms. Parker’s office.
Keeva went straight to her bedroom and peeled off her pantsuit. She put on some comfortable leggings and a T-shirt, and walked barefoot into the living room. She pushed the furniture towards the kitchen, careful not to scratch her hardwood floors. They had been a must when she was looking for an apartment. Even though she had given up hope of a professional dancing career, she still loved to dance.
She flicked on the stereo and pushed the “skip disc” button until she got to her African drumming CD. The pulsing tribal rhythms connected with something deep within her and began to restore the energy the day had drained.
Keeva inhaled slowly, breathing the music into her body. She began to sway back and forth until the music got into her feet, her body, and her soul. She moved around the room, slowly at first. Her movements grew bigger and stronger as she allowed herself to become enraptured in the music. As she leaped and twirled and kicked, the tension streamed out of every pore of her body. She danced herself into a frenzy until she reached a climatic point of release, and then lay in the middle of the floor.
She missed dancing.
Her mother enrolled her in her first dance class at the age of six so she could develop grace and good posture. Her father took her to see the Alvin Ailey dance troupe when she was ten. After that, all she dreamed of was being a professional dancer. She planned to audition for the troupe when she was seventeen, but her mother refused. Neither of her parents thought a dance career was appropriate for Keeva. They thought she needed a professional career to support herself, and that she could dance in her spare time, as a hobby. After they canceled her audition, dancing became bittersweet for Keeva and she quit taking classes.
Keeva jumped when the phone rang. She stretched back out and stared at the ceiling. The hardwood floor felt cold against her hot, sweaty skin.
The answering machine beeped. “Keeva, this is Shara Anderson from your Foundations class. I know you’re probably bogged down with studying for your other classes, but we need to get this project started soon. Please give me a call when you get a chance so we can set up a time to meet.”
Keeva rolled her eyes. In the midst of her midterm exams, her stupid professor assigned a research project. He randomly grouped the class into teams of two and she ended up with Shara.
Why was she calling her now? The project wasn’t due until the end of the semester.
Keeva didn’t know Shara too well. The most notable thing about her was how plain Jane she was. Her hair was always pulled back in a ponytail and she wore no earrings, no makeup, no nothing. She had a pretty face and would probably be nice looking if she fixed herself up a little. If she didn’t wear jeans everyday, Keeva would think she was one of those fanatical religious people who thought it was a sin to wear pants or look good. Like God would send someone to hell over a tube of lipstick and a pair of earrings. Shara definitely wasn’t the kind of person Keeva associated with and she wasn’t looking forward to the project.
She looked over at the clock. Mark would be dropping by in less than an hour to check on her. Keeva pulled the furniture back into place, then grabbed a quick shower. As she put on her make-up, she had to laugh at her new hair color. By some strange reasoning, probably a television commercial she had seen, she thought all she needed to fix her life was to spice up her hair color. She pulled her thick, brown hair, now with auburn highlights, up on top of her head and fastened it with a tortoise-shell clip. Mark liked her hair up.
As she poured a generous glass of wine, the buzzer rang, indicating that Mark was downstairs. A few minutes later, she heard him fumbling with his keys and went to open the door.
He pulled her into his arms. “Hey, how’s my Princess?”
Somehow Mark had adopted her father’s nickname for her. It was really a private joke between she and her dad. When she was growing up, he always thought Keeva’s mother was too hard on her and wanted her to be perfect, like a little princess. He thought she should get to enjoy herself more and not worry about what fork to use or how to enunciate perfect English.
Keeva inhaled the strong, masculine scent of Mark’s cologne and snuggled into his chest. “Fine, now. Do you want to come in or are we going to stand in the doorway all night?”
He kissed her on the nose. “You look beautiful as always. I love your hair like that.”
She beamed at his compliment.
Mark took her glass so she could twist the lock on the door he could never seem to work. He took a sip and frowned. “Wine? I thought you were studying.”
“I’m through for the evening. I was relaxing until you got here.”
“You know I don’t like it when you drink wine. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Keeva clenched her teeth and turned to walk toward the couch.
He followed her. “All you had to do was wait until I got here. I know how to relax you.”
She rolled her eyes. Oh, no – not tonight. She searched her mind for excuses but couldn’t think of anything. She took a deep breath and turned towards him, making herself smile. Demurely, she asked, “Really? How?”
“Come here, I’ll show you.”
Mark kissed her for what seemed like an hour. She knew him well enough to know what was next and wished she hadn’t said she was finished studying. She slowly pulled herself away. She dodged his searching lips every time he tried to reengage her in another kiss until he finally gave a frustrated groan and said, “What?”
She lowered her eyes. She couldn’t look in his face and lie. “I’m sorry, baby. It’s that time of the month.”
“Again? Wasn’t that two weeks ago?” He was paying more attention to when her cycles were, probably because she was using that excuse more and more.
Truth was, she’d barely had a period since she started getting Depo-Provera shots over a year ago. “You know that Depo has my cycles all crazy.” She turned her back to him.
He rubbed her shoulders. “You know I hate that stuff. It’s unnatural – all those extra hormones in your body. That’s probably the reason for the extra pounds you’ve gained and your constant moodiness.”
She whipped around. “What?”
“Don’t get upset. I’ve noticed you’ve picked up a few pounds. And you’re always in a bad mood. I know school is difficult, baby, but you can’t just let yourself go.”
Keeva took a deep breath and pulled a strand of hair. “Mark, I’m really tired and I need to get some rest. I have to get up and study early in the morning. Thanks for coming by, but –”
He tried to smooth things over with a kiss. She stood there limp.
“Mark, I have a study group in the morning. I need to go to sleep.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. She did eventually have to set up a study date with Shara.
“You don’t have to be so sensitive. I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings. I’m sorry, Princess.” He slunk to the door like a sad puppy with his tail between his legs.
She walked over to kiss him. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired from all the studying. I’ll feel better after a good night’s rest. I’ll call you in the morning, okay? I promise we’ll spend some quality time together after midterms are over.”
Mark accepted her apology with a kiss on the forehead. “All right, we’ll make it a date.”
Keeva closed the door behind him. She went to her dining table and flipped open a textbook. She had to make herself read at least two chapters before she went to bed. For the past few weeks, whenever she tried to study, she somehow ended up on the couch watching television. Lifetime always had a good movie on, one after another.
Later, as she undressed to get into bed, she stood in her full-length mirror and turned from side to side, trying to find the extra pounds Mark mentioned. She studied her twenty-five year old body, but didn’t see any difference.
She pulled her favorite pair of jeans out of the closet. They were a size four and usually fit her perfectly. She pulled up the zipper. They fit the same way they always did. Mark probably noticed something she didn’t. Gotta start going to the gym.
Keeva sat on the edge of the bed and opened her nightstand drawer to pull out a bottle of Ambien tablets. She didn’t like having to depend on pills, but she had to get a good night’s sleep. If she did her usual tossing and turning for hours, she’d never be able to study tomorrow.
She slipped between her crème-colored, satin sheets and started her deep breathing and relaxation techniques, hoping for sleep to come. The pill would soon chase away images of her flunking out of school and losing everything she held dear. (Urban Christian, $14.95, 300pp)
Come visit my bookclub blog at Sherri Lewis Book Club and follow me on Twitter.
Deborah Slappey PittsThanks to my wonderful readers for making Shadow Living…Paintings of Grief and I Feel Okay national best-selling and award-winning books. Grace and peace to all of you. Deborah
Shadow Living..Paintings of Grief and I Feel Okay are available at dslappeypitts.com, bookstores and online venues such as Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Waldenbooks, Target, and others.
Harobed House
“Edifying the World Thru Worlds”
Post Office Box 9105, Columbus, GA 31908
Dslappeypitts.com
Innisfree54@yahoo.com
Shadow Living…Paintings of Grief (2007)
ISBN: 978-0978789701
Overview
Shadow Living…Paintings of Grief is the enthralling sequel to I Feel Okay, Deborah Slappey Pitts’ debut bestseller. In Shadow Living…Paintings of Grief, Pitts shares her intimate story of grief and survival after husband’s death to a silent killer disease, primary amyloidosis.
With God as her refuge and strength, the author emerges from the shadows of grief to live again and to become a beacon of inspiration to others, coupled with an unwavering commitment to help others find their passageway through the murky depths of grief to a place of healing and peace.
What People are Saying About Shadow Living…
Deborah Slappey Pitts, voted “Disilgold Soul Literary Review Magazine YOUnity Guild of America Most Outstanding Book of the Year” for title, Shadow Living, Paintings of Grief which explores a woman’s biographical memoir of her account of coping with the sudden death of her young husband, which has gone on to receive numerous reviews from national top reviewers and is now a Barnes & Noble best seller receiving critical acclaim and our pick for an author to watch.
“Shadow Living, the moving autobiographical account by bestselling author Deborah Slappey Pitts, will put at your heart strings as she shares her intimate story of grief and survival following her husband’s death to a silent killer disease. Identifying the perplexing stages of mourning, Pitts helps readers discover the many stages of the grieving process, including how to embrace the light of hope.”
Ghost Extraordinare
“Shadow Living is an excellent story of a survivor, written for survivors.”
William Phenn, Reader Views
“Deborah tells a sad, yet compelling story.”
Cheryl Dunlop, editor and author, FollowMe as I Follow Christ, Complete Idiot’s Guide to the World of Narnia.”
“Shadow Living promises to give readers hope that they too can come face-to-face with and heal from grief.”
D. L. Carpenter, Author, President of Creative Ink
Raw, Honest Emotions on Paper “….SHADOW LIVING: PAINTINGS OF GRIEF, her (Pitts) story begins at her husband’s funeral. She walks us through her many stages of grief. During a time of loss, it’s easy to lose faith. Mrs. Pitts though found refuge in God. And in this book, she tells her passage through the many phases of grief. This metamorphosis is raw emotions on paper, one beautifully told.”
J. Kaye Book Review Blog (jkayeoldner@yahoo.com)
“Imagine living life after the one person you love more than anything else died. Shadow Living chronicles the thoughts and intimate emotions of Deborah Slappey Pitts after the death of her soul mate and husband, Clyde . Pitts offers a detailed account of the range of emotions and how she came to acknowledge and eventually begin to live again. This inspirational story will encourage you to make the most of everyday and celebrate the small things with those you love. Pitts gives words of advice and ideas for planning for the inevitable – death.
Shadow Living is a brilliantly written narrative that offers rich description of emotions experienced by those left in the aftermath of death….”
Deltareviewer, Reviewing for Real Page Turners
SHADOW LIVING: Paintings of Grief by Deborah Slappey Pitts is a vivid description of what it really means to lose a loved one. Clyde Slappey was stricken with primary amyloidosis, a disease of the immune system, and when he was first diagnosed, after months of seeing doctor after doctor, there seemed to be no cure. Clyde and Deborah had been married for twenty-one years when the disease finally took him from her. Even though he was at the Mayo Clinic waiting for a heart transplant, death came to him sooner. This book is Deborah’s story of living with the grief of having lost her soul mate. She gives the seven stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, fear, bargaining, depression and acknowledgement.
Her anger was interesting in that she was so angry with Clyde for leaving her and his two sons, Clyde Daryl and Alex Keith. In her deep grief, she felt as if he could have held on longer – at least long enough to get a heart transplant. SHADOW LIVING is a book that would surely help anyone going through the loss of a dearly loved mate. Deborah tells of her sleepless nights, her attempts to hide her deep depression from her friends and loved ones, of finally seeking help for herself and her son, Alex Keith. Her words are emotional and deep and I felt as if I, too, had known Clyde and had witnessed him as a father and husband.
Alice Holman, The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
Shadow Living: Paintings of Grief by Deborah Slappey Pitts is an honest, inside view of a woman and a family’s struggle to get through to the other side when one loses a loved one. Ms. Pitts is harrowingly honest in her portrayal of how she felt when her husband died. The reader could literally feel the emotions and the pain. More importantly, however, the reader could also feel the hope. ….Shadow Living serves as an honest and spiritual guide to those who are going through or will go through the loss of a beloved family member. I recommend this book to all who have loved and lost someone dear to their heart.
Angelia Menchan, APOOO BookClub
About the Author
Deborah Slappey Pitts is the multi-award winning author of Shadow Living…Paintings of Grief and I Feel Okay, a national bestseller which gives a heart-wrenching account of love, loss, and inspiration. A native of Americus, Georgia, Pitts’ mission is to bring awareness to the amyloidosis diseases and the physiological and psychological effects of the grieving process. Pitts has two sons and resides in Columbus, Georgia with husband, Marshall Pitts.
Honors and Awards
2007 YOUnity Guild Best Outstanding Book of the Year
2007 National Best Books Awards Finalist
2008 Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award
2008 Afr’am Fest Literary Award Nominee
Midwest Book Review Perfect 5
Reader Views Perfect “5” Book Review, 2007
RAWSISTAZ Perfect “5” Book Review, TRR Favorite, 2007
YGA 5-STAR, Top 25 HEATLIST Books
Mosaicbooks.com #1 Bestsellers List
Top 50 Black Christian Books National Bestseller List
Amazon.com top best-seller list
Radio and Television Interviews
Sankofa Literary Show, April 2, 2008
Urban Literary Review, March 21, 2008
Ferguson Literary Talk Show, February 12, 2008
Black History Month Internet Radio Talk Show, February 1-3, 18-22, 26-28
WAOK 1380 Powertalk Morning CBS Radio Show, Atlanta, Georgia, 2007
The Book Squad Radio and Podcast, 2007
The Grits Radio Podcast, 2007
The Rockhill Runway Newspaper, Spotlight on Deborah Slappey Pitts, Charlotte, North Carolina,
Inside Scoop Live Interview and Podcast, Internet
WPEE-TV, Noon Television Show, Cordele, Georgia
WTVM-TV, Noon Television Show, Columbus, Georgia
WRBL-TV, Noon Television Show, Columbus, Georgia
Newspapers, Magazines and Press Releases
“Shadow Living…Paintings of Grief,” Mosiac Magazine, 2007
Unmasking the Cloak of Grief and Grieving, P.O.W.E.R. Magazine, May and July 2008
Shadow Living…Paintings of Grief
An Intimate Account of Grieving and Survival, September 2007
Unmasking the Shadowy World of Grief, January 2008
Widow’s Grief Shared in Intimate Story About Learning to Live Again After Loss, February 2008
I Feel Okay (2005)
ISBN: 978-1420806090, Authorhouse, Bloomington, IN
Overview
I Feel Okay is an inspirational story based on true life experiences that Pitts and the Slappey family faced as they dealt with the death of Clyde Slappey—a husband and a father of a rare disease of the immune system known as primary amyloidosis, a disease that affects eight in a million people annually.
What People are Saying About I Feel Okay…
“I Feel Okay is more than a story about a man with a disease. It is a story of life and faith, and how the Slappey family kept the faith against insurmountable odds. It is a story of how strong they were in the face of adversity, yet able to keep a positive mental attitude. I Feel Okay has my highest A+ rating, the book is a, “must read,” in my opinion. It is well written, an exciting read and above all, a lesson in life….”
William Phenn, Readerviews
“I Feel Okay is a story of love, faith, and determination. It’s a touching story that truly shows the meaning of for better or worse, and sickness and in health, that is stated in the marriage vows….”
Eraina B. Tinnin, The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
Honors and Awards
§ 2007 Infini Best Autobiography Literary Award
§ Booking Matters National Best-selling Nonfiction, 2006
§ Reader Views Perfect “5” Book Review, 2006
§ RAWSISTAZ 4.5 Book Review, 2006
§ Writers Digest International Self-Publishing Award, 2007, Honorable Mention
Newspaper, Magazines, and Press Releases
Fighting Against All Odds, AuthorHouse Publishers
Silent Killer Disease That You Don’t Know About, AuthorHouse Publishers
A Silent Killer Disease Threatens Eight in a Million Annually, PR Web Press Release Newswire
The Rockhill Runway Newspaper, Spotlight on Deborah Slappey Pitts, Charlotte, North Carolina,
Inside Scoop Live Interview and Podcast, Internet
WPEE-TV, Noon Television Show, Cordele, Georgia
Tragedy Followed by Hope,” Thrive Magazine, Columbus, Georgia
“Clyde’s Story,” Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Columbus, Georgia
“I Feel Okay,” Synovus Connections, Columbus, Georgia
“Local New Author Pens First Book,” The Columbus Times, Columbus, Georgia
“Woman Finally Feels ‘Okay” after Writing Book,” The Albany Herald, Albany, Georgia
“Americus Native Publishes Book on Husband’s Life,” The Americus Times Recorder, Americus, Georgia
“TSYS Team Member is a Best Selling Author,” TSYS Insite, Columbus, Georgia
Thanks to my wonderful readers for making Shadow Living…Paintings of Grief and I Feel Okay national best-selling and award-winning books. Grace and peace to all of you. Deborah
After Death-What is Left Behind
You received the phone call, your loved one has died.
Over the past two years your relationship has been frayed, separated by Secrets & Lies.
As executor of the will, you find there are more legal ties.
More family, people you don’t know, more Secrets & Lies
Money changes people they all seek what has been left by your loved one the decease
You’ve been put in an uncomfortable position, you need an emotional release.
Your girl is a “gold digger” this you already know,
With the estate making you wealthy your relationship is about to blow
There’s one you’ve been talking to, she’s been tugging at your heart
You spend the week spending steamy moments with her setting off emotional sparks
Neither of you know the connection you’ve found a new beginning, a new love
But from the grave your father’s Secrets & Lies reveal another shock, you need help from above.
You find yourself dealing with a wife and family you never knew he had
You look at those expecting part of his estate and now you’re questioning “Dad”
Can a life that held Secrets & Lies reach you from the grave?
Can your family be the same, can new relationships be saved?
Will the wife finally confront the mistress who has been in her marriage from the start?
Will the mistress find she is the only woman who held the deceased close to her heart?
Can the son understand why his father didn’t tell his Secrets are there more Lies does he have an Alibi?
Will he lose his new love or find the truth while keeping his own secrets those he must hide.
Will the Mince family be secured as they were before D.Q.’s death?
You’ll have to read…..Family Secret’s Lies & Albi’s to learn the rest.
IF I HAD A DAUGHTER
If I had a daughter I would tell her to understand she is a gift from God. I would instill that in her from the day she is born. There would be no competition between us as far as winning daddy’s affections or proving I am the better female. I would tell her there was a time it was considered a curse to have a daughter verses having a son. But that time is over because now the female child can be adored, respected and looked upon as intelligent.
I would tell her to always know she is a unique creation of God and God is something or someone deep in her heart. I would teach her to value this invisible presence at all times and to shield it from the temptations of the world. First and foremost she must always understand that boys are totally different than girls in more ways than just physical. I would let her know each year of her life requires a different understanding of the male species.
First of all, the boy is a hunter and he thrives to satisfy his senses. It is human nature for him to desire to devour her body but it does not mean you should surrender it to him, especially when God is your first love. I would teach her to understand it is normal to feel sensations in her distinguished female areas of her body that the male yearns to touch and explore. But understand this is human nature. This urgency is the continuation of the human species. Know precious daughter it is not your responsibility to give your body away for this natural process. The alluring of the eyes of the beholder and his strong desire to have you is no different than what happens with the animals in the jungle. It is called mating to bring forth life.
True, it appears romantic and magical when you read about it or watch it on TV. This is just a smoke screen to sedate you as your soul, spirit and relationship with God is compromised for a moment of lustful fulfillment. Once the sperm is released, things are never the same because God was not in it and He was put on hold while your self-value is dropped. Before you take off those panties, remember you are not alone. God is there and hoping He is chosen over satisfying the lusts of the flesh of another.
Once you have allowed yourself to become naked before the eyes of a male, you risk the chance of being an instrument for sexual pleasure and never seen as a flower again. The boys share their experiences with one another as though their experience was a just reward for all their efforts for cunning you into his bed. Virginity is special for it represents oneness with God. God has something for you when you wait for your mate and trust Him to choose him for you.
There are other things going on in life for God’s children besides sweating between sheets. There is much to be done in bringing light into a world where God was not considered instead of sex. The outcome is greed, lust, drugs, sexual abuse and hate. All just because one girl, someone’s daughter did not value herself as a child of God. Honor yourself. See the opposite sex as a means to exercise spiritual truth not sexual arousal for the outcome is illegitimate children and a cry for the father to be in their lives. Go in to the world knowing God is with you always. If only someone had told them.
Love is real. It is not based on being wanted and needed. It is based on a silent knowingness that together we can make a difference in this world. My daughter, your most important homework assignment is finding out whom or what God is and living it each day of your life.
By Linda D. Wattley
Author
MOLESTED ANGEL WINGS
As a survivor of molestation, I can honestly say there is a beautiful life after being molested. I remember watching “Woman Thou Art Loose” by TD Jakes. In the movie, the main character, a young female was raped by her mother’s boyfriend who took her virginity. Neither her mother nor anybody in her life knew her inner suffering with this experience. That hidden anguish grew to self-destruction.
The movie bothered me from the standpoint that when a man of God counsels this young lady knowing her deep seated anger and offered her no answers and in the end no hope. This was a great devastation for me because the victim ends up shooting the victimizer at the altar in the House of God. People found this to be an excellent movie. I found it to be a preying on emotions and a means of an income dealing with a subject so complex and soul altering that to tamper with it with no resolve was unjust to molested victims needing help. Several years later, I still remember this disappointment.
With this in mind, I want victims, not only molested victims to know and understand there is hope and there are answers. We just have to discover our own path to God. I wrote a book, “LAST DAY OF VICTIMIZATION”. This book reveals the soul of victimization and prepares victims and those who love and want to assist in the healing process answers and a real understanding why we are victims. Trust me if you really want to be delivered from your past, it can happen and it will if you consider the possibility it is because you are a child of God therefore you are a target for potential abuse.
Though many people would hate to admit, healing from molestation and many other forms of abuse takes time, lots of time. It is a shifting of gears from low to high with neutral sometimes making us think we are not progressing. I want molested angels all around the world to know you can and will accept your wings of freedom. When it happens you will know it. I remember accepting my wings. It happened in a way that never entered my mind. I owe it to my soul mate. I will ever be indebted to him.
Standing up for one’s feelings, needs and desires was difficult for me as a molested victim because that natural choosing was denied me for so many years of my life. I faced the world not acknowledging my true feelings that made me who I am. Instead, the needs, feelings and desires of the ones I loved had precedence over mines; but finally after much trust in God and allowing myself to rise out of my private abyss, I spoke from my soul and risk the chance of disappointing or even losing my soul mate. See in the past, I was hollered at or spanked if I expressed my true feelings. But my day of realizing God has brought me from a long way, I spoke and received my Wings of Healing. Today, I can say: God will restore the years of the locusts. My past can no longer paralyze my presence. To be free is knowing you are AMAZING!
by Linda D. Wattley
Author
Chapter 1
Sluggishly, I pulled myself up and sat on the side of the bed, remaining motionless for a minute, almost certain it was not going to be a good day. It was my son’s birthday. Matthew died three years ago. Every year, around this time, I would feel depressed. I hated when I did this to myself. Sometimes, I really believed my depression was self-imposed. Thirty-three years old, no life, no Matthew and, dare I mention, no sex with a man in damn near two years. Not even a real relationship since my ex. I’m not a bad looking woman. At least, that’s what I’d assured myself.
Slipping my chilled feet into my furry slippers, I moved toward the window and drew open the blinds. Peering out the window, the sky wasn’t looking very promising for the sun to shine much today. A cloud, in the shape of a long-stemmed rose, emerged with a faint image of Uncle Leon’s face beside it. If I see another image in the sky, I don’t know what I’d do.
Sighing heavily, I stretched my fingers across my hips and exhaled. “At least today, it’s a decent one, considering the occasion,” I mumbled to myself.
Contemplating taking off from work, keeping as preoccupied as possible, was something I needed to do. Grabbing my pack of cigarettes off the dresser, I ambled into the bathroom. Standing in the mirror, I lit the cigarette that dangled from my lips, drew in deep and blew the smoke at the mirror, forming a hovering cloud. My hair looked wild, coming very close to looking like a frizzy afro, sticking out every which way, and my ends needed to be trimmed.
Normally, my hazel eyes would be my best feature, big and bright, but instead they were red, droopy and tired. Inhaling another puff of smoke, I grabbed my plump cheeks, and blew it out right away. I squeezed my cheeks, took my other fingers and pulled the skin under my eyes down. Damn, that was a pathetic sight. What I was trying to accomplish, I had no idea. I pulled off my white and red heart pajamas and jumped into the shower.
Dressing in blue scrubs and brushing my hair back into a ponytail, I headed downstairs. Opening the front door, I stepped onto the porch and picked up the newspaper, before waving to Mrs. Jenkins across the street, pulling weeds out of her yard. I always thought she was a little weird, an older Irish woman, maybe in her late sixties. In the summer, she wore boots and pretended to shovel snow in her yard. During the winter months, she would turn on the sprinkler and water the front yard, at times watering snow. For ten years I’ve lived in this house, I don’t believe I’d ever seen any family visit her. During the holidays, I’d made it a point to bake a tray of cookies, or some kind of desert, and take it to her, with a card. She would never say thank you, but I knew she appreciated it. If it got too late in the day, on a holiday, she would knock on my door and ask if I was coming over.
Opening the paper, I turned directly to my favorite section: Your Daily Horoscope, which I usually read everyday. There was a time when I was hooked on psychic readings. It fascinated me so, but Mama always said I should leave that stuff alone or else something bad could happen. Mama had tendencies of putting fear in me, so I hadn’t been up on the psychic thing as I used to be.
Moving my eyes through the paper, I scrolled down to the sign of Aries. It said: When searching for what you want, the answer lies in front of you, directly in front of you, and comes to light when you least expect it. I pondered for several minutes, trying to tie the horoscope into my life, but I didn’t really know.
Tucking the paper under my arm, I stepped inside the house and into the kitchen, to fix a bowl of cereal. Dropping the paper on the kitchen counter, I turned on the television and looked over at the green digital clock on the stove: 8:10 a.m. Good, I still had time. I was in no rush to get to the nursing home, where I worked, anyway. In general, I liked my job, but some of those old people just plain got on my nerves.
I knew I shouldn’t have come to work. Not really feeling being here, and after working for six hours, I left the nursing home early. I wasn’t feeling well anyway, and I couldn’t work a complete day. Besides, time was ticking away and what I dreaded was getting close. I felt anxious, nervous and sad all at once. Thinking of Uncle Leon, I realized I never called him back yesterday. I thought about calling him, but I didn’t want him to hear the sadness in my voice. That would be all I’d need.
At times, it was so hard hiding my emotions, even when I tried to. Uncle Leon was more of a father to me, than my own father had been. When I was little, he always told me that I was his daughter in a prior life. He’d given me a necklace, with a black marble at the end of the chain. As a child, I wore it a lot, but now I kept it in my jewelry box for sentimental reasons.
It was the end of July and, in a couple of months, summer would be over. I met up with Janetta for a late lunch. I knew I could count on her to make me feel better. But, honestly, I think I wanted to feel miserable. I didn’t want to be happy today—that self-imposed depression—I guess.
Janetta was a cool friend. She and I go way back. She was my best friend and really one of my only friends to be exact. I lost a lot of friends over the last few years. This was mostly because my dealings with my ex, who was shot, the death of Matthew in a car accident, and my drug and alcohol addiction.
Janetta didn’t take a lot of mess from anyone and she told you like it was. She could be as ghetto as she wanted to be or an angel with a little bit of an attitude. She was overweight, but beautiful. That girl could dress her ass off, with her hair hooked up in one of her many unique styles. Janetta had two obsessions in life: food and men.
I pulled into the garage and entered the house through the side entrance. I tossed my purse on the kitchen table and went upstairs to change out of my scrubs. After slipping into a pair of jeans, and a T-shirt, I grabbed my purse and cigarettes, sat on the front porch and waited for Janetta. Lighting a cigarette, I tried to think good thoughts like flowers, trees, the water sprinkler in the back yard, kids playing, and summer. Summer made my spirits feel good. With closed eyes, I rocked back and forth in the rocking chair, with tightly clenched fists. Then the horn blew. In an instant, I snapped back to reality. I stood, with a smile on my face, when I saw Janetta pulling up in her Land Rover. Seeing Janetta, bouncing her head back and forth to an old school jam, briefly took me back down memory lane.
It was 1986, our senior year in high school and it was graduation time at Northwest High School. With plaid green pants and a silver blouse, you couldn’t tell me anything, with my hair mushroom-shaped with the shag in the back. My eyes wide as can be with my thin lips painted with a light purple lipstick. Our school colors were green and silver, so I did my best to coordinate. Janetta wore a black skirt with a silver blouse as well.
We both planned to wear a skirt, but I chickened out at the last minute. I told her my legs were too big.
“Well, mine are, too,” she debated, “you think I care?”
I wasn’t sure if I was going to graduate or not, because I missed a lot of days hanging out with the wrong crowd. I always wanted to fit in and never quite thought I did. I always managed to date the creepy guys who wanted nothing but sex. Janetta was smart and never cared about what anybody thought of her. That was what I always admired the most about her. We have been friends since the ninth grade and, I must admit, she was always there for me.
Although Janetta was a big girl, that never stopped her from enjoying life. She would call herself F.A.T, Fabulous and Thick. That was her way of putting a positive spin on something others may look at as negative. In high school, we were the same size, but different height. I was five-seven and dark-skinned, while she was light-skinned and five-foot-three. That was until I lost weight from all the stress, and drug and alcohol abuse. It’s strange though; looking back, it seemed like I was happier at a size twenty, than I was at my present size eight.
Calling out to me, Janetta snapped me back to reality. “Hey girl, I know what day it is, but we are going to get through this day, okay? I’m taking you to your favorite restaurant.”
I leaned back, looked at her and smiled, with a raised brow. “What, the Fondue Palace?”
Janetta nodded and licked her lips.
I slid into the passenger seat. “That place is expensive; you don’t have to do that, Janetta.”
“Don’t tell me what I don’t have to do. I know I don’t have to do anything but be proud, black and die. But, today is a special day, maybe a hard one to deal with, but a special day. Let me see a smile on your face, right now,” she demanded. Then she looked at me and placed her finger under my chin, and turned my face toward her.
I stuck my tongue out at her.
“Okay, that’s what I’m talking about,” she chuckled. “That’s much better.”
“How’s Steven?” Janetta dated a lot, and if I was sure of anything, it was to hear all of her men stories.
“Girl, Steven is history. He’s a cheapskate. Do you know he wanted me to give him gas money at the end of our date? And, on top of that, I couldn’t even order my own meal. He ordered for me. And, ordered like the cheapest thing on the menu. What am I supposed to do with a big piece of broccoli and chicken staring back at me? I ain’t on no damn diet.”
I laughed. I thought that was too funny.
There was a long silence.
“So,” Janetta said, breaking the silence, “when are you going to the gravesite today?”
I knew I was going, but I didn’t want to think about it. Not yet, anyway, even though I had to.
“Probably around six. Mama and Sierra are going with me.”
“Well, I have a teddy bear I bought for Matthew, if you can take it with you.” Janetta reached in the back seat and pulled out a small, baby blue bear. It was so cute. I tried to hold back the tears, and surprisingly, I was successful.
“Thank you, Janetta, it’s beautiful.” I was happy Mama and my youngest sister, Sierra, was going with me. Last year, they were out of town for Sierra’s seventeenth birthday, so I went alone. That was a big emotional mistake.
After lunch with Janetta, I felt better. However, as soon as I inserted the key into my front door, I suddenly felt bad again—out of control as each second passed—so I paced the living room and chain-smoked one cigarette after another. I thought about calling Sarah, an old friend. I guess not a friend; you really wouldn’t call someone a friend if all you did was snort up white crap together.
Before I changed my mind, I grabbed the phone and dialed. Someone answered, but my words lodged in my throat. I hung up and visualized my therapist asking me if I really wanted to make that call. It’s been a little over a year since I have been totally clean. I can’t, I thought to myself, and smoked another cigarette instead. After a few minutes, I put it out, as I eyed the bottle of gin on the top cabinet in the kitchen. Finally, and as much as I tried to restrain myself, I opened it. I took a long swallow, and then another, and then, one last swallow.
Standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and imagined Matthew in the living room, playing with his Legos. I ran to him, he looked up at me. He was so happy, and as I reached out to him, his image disappeared. Then instantly, I saw another image of Uncle Leon and it scared me. I looked down at the bottle of gin and hurled it across the room. Chips of glass scattered everywhere. I dropped to my knees, wrapped my arms around myself and cried profusely.
Unable to stop the downpour of tears, one would’ve thought I had just buried my son, but it was three long, pain-staking years ago. Matthew would be eight if he were alive. So many thoughts ran through my head. I missed him so much. On my hands and knees, I crawled up the stairs to the top. Standing, I reached out and wrapped my trembling hand around the doorknob. Inhaling deeply, and exhaling slowly, I opened the door to his room, which I rarely went into. Nothing had changed. The room remained the same way for the last three years. I didn’t touch much of anything when I went in. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, wanting to smell him once again.
On his bed was a picture of him I placed there three years ago, that I looked at whenever I mustered the nerve to visit his room. That’s what I thought of my infrequent pop-ins to his room, a visit. But this was the last picture I took of Matthew riding his new bike I bought him. Standing in the middle of his room, I embraced the photo and looked around.
So vividly, I remembered the day my precious son died. I suppose it’s a day I will always remember, well into eternity. I was driving. Nevilla, Uncle Leon and Matthew were in the back seat. I’d bought a new television for Matthew’s room, which was in the front passenger’s seat. We were on our way home from McDonald’s. It was raining so hard that day. We’d stopped at the gas station. I thought Matthew had on his seatbelt, but I learned later, that he hadn’t. The car flipped several times as I swerved to avoid a semi-trailer that I thought was coming toward us. When the fire truck, ambulance and police arrived on the scene, Nevilla, Uncle Leon and I were still in the car, buckled in. I was unconscious. The day after the accident, I learned that Matthew was thrown several feet into a field, where he died on impact. From that day forward, my life had been one complete mess after another, and the feeling of guilt grew from a molehill into a mountain. Had I strapped my baby in, he would still be alive.
In the middle of Matthew’s room, I sat down on the floor and rocked myself to sleep to later awake by the ringing telephone. I knew it was Mama. She was probably crying too. I looked up at the Mickey Mouse clock on his wall. After three years, it’s still running like the first day I bought it. It was almost time to go to the gravesite.
Closing Matthew’s bedroom door behind me, I noticed the newspaper on the table in the hallway. I picked it up and read my horoscope, again, aloud: When searching for what you want, the answer lies in front of you, directly in front of you, and comes to light when you least expect it.
I still wasn’t sure what that meant, so I tossed it on the bed in my room. My head was pounding, so I went into the bathroom, drank some water and took two aspirins.
END_______________________
Thank you, I hope you enjoyed. CLICK HERE to purchase your copy of Searchable Whereabouts. You can also visit the author at her website: http://www.tinishanicolejohnson.com/
Thrifted, Not Re-Gifted?
Thrifted, Not Re-gifted
A funny thing happen to me at the thrift store. As I was scanning the bookshelves for the lastest literary cast-offs my daughter cried out to me after unearthing a slightly worn copy of my debut novel, Soon and Very Soon-with a signature, no less. I haven’t done many of these. This gave me pause. I was insulted. I felt the way I did when I found my favorite cassette tape of all time, New Editions’s NE Heartbreak album in the bargin bin at Sam Goody record store. Surely, it was a mistake. The owner must have been like those clueless sad-sacks who give away one-of-a-kind artwork only to find out it’s worth later on the Antique’s Roadshow.
I made my daughter take me to the exact same spot where she found it. I examine the void it left on the shelf between an outdated volume of the Childcraft encyclopedia and another book as if it would give me some clue as to who could have given my baby away. I want to know this person’s identity more than anything. See, my book only came out seven months ago, and we were in my neighborhood. I was sure I could crack the case. That’s only a twenty-five to thirty mile radius to cover. Not exactly a case for Scotland Yard. I narrow the field of known residents that I had told about the book or sold the book to. Just when I think I have a list compiled, I think how ridiculous this whole thing is. How do you tactfully ask someone, did you happen to pitch my book out with your argyl sweater and Hammer pants? Was there no one you could personally give the book to? Ever hear of paperback swap, for goodness sake?
There had to be a logical explanation. The writer in me had me sit down at the kiddie desk set they were selling for just $7 to ponder a few possible ones. Maybe this person had a husband like mine who constantly threatens, “Don’t bring another book in this house.” But of course this person couldn’t resist my realistic tale about two pastors that marry and combine their churches. So she took the risk and discarded the evidence immediately after the last page. Yeah, that’s it.
Just when I thought I could rest a bit after a major signing at my sorority’s convention at the end of this month. Yeah, maybe I’ll do the Baltimore Book Festival in September, then the Capitol Book Festival. I’ve got a sequel to write. I can’t possibly create and promote simultaneously. Soon and Very Soon will do alright. Wrong. I got a few more calls to make, connections to follow-up on and weekends to book with signings.
“Look mommy, you’ve got that book.”
That’s my six year old who has gotten good at reading the spin of books. She gets caught up on the last syllable of Terri McMillian’s last name as she spots the hardback copy of A Day Late and a Dollar Short. I do own that book. I stood in line for hours while pregnant to get it signed at the crowded-to-overflowing Karibu books in the Bowie Town Center (Don’t get me started. That’s a whole nother lament). I would have loved to get it for $2.10. Just thirty more cents than my book was going for at the Waldorf Thrift Store.
God has a sense of humor. Just as I was about to grab my book up and discreetly pay for it at the counter like it was the last scandal sheet written about me left on the newstand, I realized I’ve gotten some real good books here. I wasn’t thinking, poor Audre Lorde when I picked her book of poems up and added it to my library. I’ve found, read and treasured, Grisham, Jakes, Gaines, and Steele.
I could take it home, wipe the red colored pencil price tag off with a baby wipe and add it to the other books packed to go to Florida-for sale for $15 a pop. Genreic signature could easily be personalized on the spot. Dead wrong-maybe, maybe not. ( I put this is print so I wouldn’t be tempted to do that)
I left the copy of Soon and Very Soon on the shelf next to the outdated volume of the Childcraft encyclopedia and the other book. God has plans for that book right there. My goal was that it would be widely read and that it would be a blessing to the reader. I couldn’t think of a better place for that goal to be accomplished.
Eleven Months of Hell
Chapter 1
“What did you call me, huh? Speak up bitch!” Mercedes commanded. Terri shivered under the knife Mercedes had placed on his throat. This was different from the way he acted thirty seconds ago. His whole body trembled now; he realizes that he went too far. He couldn’t believe Mercedes would step to him like this. She was usually so calm and relaxed. She hated violence. Right before his eyes, she had snapped into another woman. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He shut his eyes and prayed to God to spare him his life.
Mercedes’ heart was beating loudly as she watched Terri close his eyes to pray. She turned to look towards her bed where she saw her bible faced down on it. Shame washed over her. She dropped the knife. Terri broke loose and ran downstairs, falling as he went. He disappeared into his bedroom, slammed, and locked the door. She could hear him moving furniture in front of the door. “Lord please, forgive me!” She cried. Mercedes fell to her knees and begged God for forgiveness. She praised Him for stopping her from slitting Terri’s throat. Just seconds ago, she almost committed an act that could have gotten her locked away for a very, very long time. Her mind drifted to earlier that night, to the thoughts she had formulated about Terri and their marriage.
***
Mercedes listened as Terri unlocked the back door and walked into the house. He had just gotten off from his shift at the post office. She could hear him walking around downstairs as if he was inspecting the place. This was his nightly routine. She cringed when she heard his foot settle onto the first step. He was coming upstairs to harass and abuse her, as usual. Everything was the same as it had been for the last eleven months, but tonight it would be different. Mercedes had made up her mind…tonight would be very different.
Terri swaggered into Mercedes’ space, his eyes glued on her as she sat reading her bible. He smirked, sniffed, and cocked his head. He started in with his usual assault.
“I was just downstairs and I don’t see one chore I instructed you to do complete! What’s wrong with you? Are you too stupid to even know what needs to be done around this house?”
“Look! I’m telling you Terri, I’m not in the mood for this mess tonight. If you call me stupid one more time, I swear, I’m not going to be responsible for my actions.” Mercedes’ heart pounded; she could feel adrenalin coursing through her body. She was tired of Terri’s verbal beatings and meant for this to be the last time this man called her out of her name. Terri considered her words an idle threat. Mercedes had said that so many times before but never did anything. Instead, she’d make up with him. Then when she wouldn’t comply with his demands he would start calling her names again. Mercedes kept on reading her bible. She was trying to regain her spiritual composure and become herself again. Terri smirked and started in on her again.
“You’re the stupidest woman I have ever met in my life! You’re sitting up here reading the bible and you don’t even understand what the Word is trying to say!” Terri bellowed.
Mercedes leapt from the bed, jumped in Terri’s face, clutching the butcher knife in her right hand she went for his jugular. She held the cold blade to his flesh. Her head throbbed, her eyes ached, she could hear her heart pounding wildly in her chest.
“What did you call me bitch? Say it again bitch! You said I was what? Huh? What is it you’ve never met before? Huh? Speak up bitch! You so damn smart! Say it bitch! You’re so bad. You a man, right? Say it bitch!”
Terri was shaken. Mercedes was dazed too, but she stood her ground. She never wanted to hear stupid come out of Terri’s mouth again. But even after asking him nicely and politely to stop, he’d refused. So she lost it. She felt something shaking and realized it was his knees. This gave her more nerve; she felt powerful, even invincible. It felt good to see Terri behave like the coward she had always known him to be. She looked him straight in the eyes and waited for him to call her stupid again. Tears slid down his cheeks. She didn’t know if he was sorry or scared. She concluded that he was scared since he didn’t think women ever deserved apologies. His eyes were turning beet red; he looked pitiful. She started feeling bad, but something in her would not let her stop. Mercedes’ eyes cascaded over the bed, where she had laid her bible. Something in her shifted; suddenly she felt an inner peace. Slowly she lifted the knife from Terri’s neck and lowered her arm. When she dropped it, Terri scurried down the steps like a girl, ran into his bedroom, and locked his door. What had become of her? How had she gotten to this place? She’d never hurt anyone in her life. Nor had she ever desired to hurt anyone. In the military she had been trained extensively to protect and defend self and others, yet she never once thought she’d use such measures on a member of her household. Mercedes didn’t consider Terri a husband—although she was legally married to him—she just thought of him as a person who happen to live in her household.
This man took me there. A place I thought I’d never go. Mercedes threw her hands up in praise, thanking God for bringing her back to her senses. Had she cut this man, life would have changed dramatically for her. Now she understood what it meant to commit a crime in the heat of passion. At least, in her case, what it’s like to come dangerously close to doing it. Funny though, she always thought a crime of passion had something to do would love. But Mercedes did not love this man. She didn’t even like him, yet there she was in the heat of passion, poised to commit the worst sin of her life. “Thank you Jesus!” Mercedes cried out. She knew this was the last time this man would ever call her stupid. Her body heaved a sigh of relief.
Mercedes phoned her sister.
“Hello.”
“Hey Pearl, how are you?” Mercedes spoke as if everything was normal.
“I’m good, just dosing in and out of sleep. Is everything alright?”
It was then that Mercedes realized it was past midnight, and it was unusual for her to call her sister so late at night, especially on a weeknight.
“Yeah, everything is fine. No, let me say everything is the same. But I’ve got to get out of this house, immediately,” Mercedes added.
“You want me to come get you now? I can get Max, gas up the car and we’ll be right down there, just say the word!”
“No, I haven’t made arrangements yet, but I’ll do it tomorrow, and we can do this on Saturday.” Mercedes thought about her son Max. She knew he would be ready to round up his boys, come to [name the town/city] and kick Terri’s butt. Mercedes kept most of the abuse and what she was going through from her sister and son because she didn’t want them to worry. Still, Pearl and Max had witnessed Terri’s craziness; they’d often asked if everything was all right.
“Well, you just get everything straight. If you need me to do anything for you, don’t hesitate to tell me what you need. I’ll kick him dead in his mousy mouth!” Pearl said, making Mercedes laugh. “We’ll be down there on Saturday, so don’t you worry about that foolish old man! We’re here for you and if you want us to come right now, we’ll be there. There’s nothing more important to us than you Mercedes.”
Tears cascade down Mercedes’ brown cheeks. She needed to hear the love. She inhales deeply, looks up at the ceiling with a pause before responding, “No, everything is going to be just fine now.”
When Mercedes got off the phone, she reflected on how she got into this situation. She wasn’t a violent person. She cringed at the thought of killing a mosquito, but here she was ready to slice a man’s throat! She was tired of the madness. For eleven months, when Terri’ was present, Mercedes could barely remember her name. He called her stupid repeatedly. One time he leveled stupid at her forty two times in an hour and a half. The only reason she kept her composure was because they were in a car and he was driving. But, in that moment, the rage had started to mount.
It wasn’t always this way. Mercedes had gotten into a relationship with Terri because she was lonely and broke. She had grieved too long for her deceased ex-husband; she wanted to go on with her life. Although her ex-husband was not perfect, nor did they have the perfect marriage, he treated her like precious glass, compared to Terri. Her ex-husband was her best friend. She was not thinking straight when she got with Terri.
Mercedes never imagined she’d be in a place such as this. The next time, she thought, she would be sure before she hooked up with a man. She’d be in the right frame of mind. She wouldn’t let finances or loneliness choose for her. She would be stable. She could start this story just the way she started her relationship with Terri, but she won’t. Instead she’ll go back to the beginning, so you can understand how she got to this place.
MARKETING THE MESSAGE
*from a newsletter sent by http://www.ministrymarketingsolutions.com/
www.myspace.com/pamperryprcoach Farmington MI 48336
If you’ve missed any of the podcasts “2 PR Pros” with leading public relations and publishing pros from around the country, here’s your chance to click and listen. The beauty of technology. If you don’t know what a podcast is…just read on.
Ministry Marketing Solutions wants to keep you on the cutting edge to help you “market the Message.” If you’re an author or a ministry, listen to these shows. Each podcast is 30 minutes – free information.
Description
If you’re an author, you need to know the in’s and out’s and the do’s and don’ts of book publicity. If you’re a Christian Author, you have a responsibility to spread the WORD and represent God in excellence. This Talkcast will show you how. Learn how to put together a press kit, get media lists and write books that SELL!This Podcast was created using http://www.talkshoe.com/
Episodes
1. EPISODE21 – 2 PR Pros – Guest Crystal Obey of GMA Publishinghttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.78Mb)
Description: Crystal Obey believes in the Power of Partnership and encourages others to reach for their God given potential. She is the co-owner, with her husband Anthony, of GMA Publishing providing book services to Writers, Pastors, Leaders, and Speakers. GMA has published close to 100 titles and provides free writing, publishing, and marketing advice at www.GMApublishing.com. The book, Start Small Finish BIG in Self Publishing, written by the Obeys, was released in March 2007 to help aspiring authors write a business and marketing plan for their book. Crystal is also the co-creator of the Refined by Fire Christian Inspirational Book Series for Women – The Official Publishing Opportunity for Christian Women Speakers and Leaders. There are currently 4 books in the series with more being planned for release in the future.For more information about Crystal Obey, GMA Publishing, or Refined by Fire: Visit: www.GMApublishing.com Visit: www.RefinedbyFireWomen.com Email: info@GMApublishing.com Call: (812) 962-0861
2. EPISODE20 – 2 PR Pros discuss book publishing and promotionhttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.66Mb)
Description: My guest on this show is: Tamika Johnson, CEO & Publisher, Anointed Word Media Group. www.publishyourchristianbook.com — As a divorced mother of one, Johnson, an award winning author, took just $250 and launched Anointed Word Media Group on May 1, 2006, from her parents small computer room. Within six months of operation the company moved into a commerical office and had published authors from around the Country. January 2007, AWMG, the only Christian publishing company nominated, was voted Best Small Press of 2006 by Marguerite Press. February 2007, Tamika expanded the publishing company to include a male imprint, Men of Standard Publications and an online radio program Anointed Authors on Air, placing all entities under the heading of Anointed Word Media Group.
3. EPISODE19 – 2 PR Pros discuss From Book to Bestseller by Penny Sansevierihttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 13.04Mb)
Description: The Treasure Map to perfect publicity and striking publishing gold is what has been said about Penny sansdevieri’s new book, From Book to Bestseller. She will give author’s the insider’s guide to publicizing and marketing their book! From Book signings to Oprah! All it takes is a plan and some prayer! Tune in and listen. www.booktobestseller.com
4. EPISODE18 – 2 PR Pros discuss Ministry Marketing featuring Charis Hunthttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.45Mb)
Description: My guest is Charis Hunt. She is vice president of New Business Development for Advance Advertising Agency Inc. Specializing in media buying, creative writing and public relations, Charis has developed innovative media solutions for numerous award-winning gospel artists, businesses and churches across the nation. Helping Chrisitan authors is also her passion. She consistently delivers power-packed literary content and effective advertising and PR strategy to aspiring authors. Hear us discuss the ministry marketing industry & give free advice!
5. EPISODE17 – 2 PR Pros discuss PURE Publicity with Ben Laurrohttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.92Mb)
Description: Ben Laurro is the owner of Pure Publicity which has offices in Los Angeles, Nashville and Seattle. Known for their creative campaigns, Pure Publicity has secured interviews with their clients on national television programs (Entertainment Tonight, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Early Show, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and Oprah), national syndicated radio shows and national print media (USA Today, People Magazine, Instyle, Ladies Home Journal and Los Angeles Times), including daily papers in top markets. Hear him on “2 PR Pros” as we discuss what it takes to get the big media.
6. EPISODE16 – 2 PR Pros discuss Publicity today with Toni Bekhamhttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.77Mb)
Description: My guest tonight is a real PR pro! Toni Beckham is president and CEO of PR, et Cetera, Inc. a full-service public relations and marketing communications firm she established in June 1999. In the company?s earliest days, Toni promoted events for friends and acquaintances without charge to familiarize the public with her work. One such promotion led to the acquisition of her first paying client, Tavis Smiley, author, civic activist, and then host of the widely popular one-hour nightly talk show on national cable station, Black Entertainment Television, ?BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley.? PR, et Cetera has represented him on several occasions since. Her current project: “Gumbo for the Soul” Literacy Program website: www.GumboForTheSoul.netAnthology Title: “Gumbo for the Soul: the Recipe for Literacy in the Black Community” benefiting literacy program
7. EPISODE15 – 2 PR Pros discuss Book Publicity todayhttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.03Mb)
Description: Book Publicity Puzzle! How do you get all the pieces put together. Award winning publicist (Marika Flatt of PR By The Book) will discuss tonight on the podcast at 8:00 p.m. Learn how to start with unique positioning angles, sculpt them into an attractive pitch and look for the appropriate placements in the media. Ask us anything. If you’re a PR Pro too, call in and chime in. Hear our “shop talk” and listen and learn something new. It’s all about “marketing the message.”
8. EPISODE14 – 2 PR Pros discuss Publicity todayhttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.60Mb)
Description: Gospel music is exploding! How do you get noticed? Need a website designed? How about an Eblast? Want to get your podcast out? Tonight’s guest – Humilitee of Gospelfruits.org can show you how! It’s PR you can do yourself with a little bit of help! Ask us anything. If you’re a PR Pro too, call in and chime in. Hear our “shop talk” and listen and learn something new. It’s all about “marketing the message.”
9. EPISODE13 – 2 PR Pros discuss gospel promotions for stage plays and eventshttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.80Mb)
Description: If Tyler Perry can do it, you can too! Do you think you have the right mix of creativity, gospel knowledge and humor to pull off a stage play successfully? How do you promote a gospel play anyway? What are the current trends in promotions? Want to stage an event, what’s involved? Talk with pros who deal with issues like this all the time. Ask us anything. If you’re a PR Pro too, call in and chime in. Hear our “shop talk” and listen and learn something new. It’s all about “marketing the message.” My guest is Kristy Harper from Turning Heads Promotions out of Dallas, Texas. www.Turningheadspromotions.com
10. EPISODE12 – 2 PR Pros discuss BIG DREAMS, BIG MEDIA- Gwendolyn Quinnhttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.65Mb)
Description: Episode # 12: Big Dreams. Big Platform. Big Media. Gwendolyn Quinn talks shops. She is a leader in the PR field and in NYC! We will talk about: How do you get the exposure you think you deserve? Want to get out there? Talk with 2 PR PROs who deal with PR issues day in and day out. Ask us anything! If yo are a PR Pro too, call in and chime in. If you are a media PRO, give us your two cents. We do not bite! The more the better. It is all about marketing the message.
11. EPISODE11 – 2 PR Pros discuss how to find the right tools and PR proshttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 14.06Mb)
Description: Recognized as the grounding force of MarketAbility, Kim Dushinski, the strategic marketing mindset and love of being organized are key to our own successful marketing. She is responsible for our website development, online marketing, advertising design and placement, direct mail coordination, and the concept and design of MarketAbilitys marketing materials. She has launched a new program: www.Howtomarketyourbook.com. This system will Let her Help You Find the Marketing Tools and Professionals Who Can Help You with Book Marketing. Kim is co-author of MarketAbilitys Book Marketing Profit System (now in its 6th Edition). Also visit: www.howtomarketmybook.com for more info! Brand new!
12. EPISODE10 – 2 PR Pros discuss the FOUNDATION of good publicity campaignshttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 13.52Mb)
Description: My guest this week is Kandie Delley, owner of KanDel Media. Her firm does Online Press kits, Web Content, Online Promotions including a Gospel Newsletter, Creative Consulting & Typing and Transcription Services. She is out of Dallas and is one of the premier “hot” shops providing creativity in ministry marketing! Her webiste: www.kandelmedia.com
13. EPISODE9 – 2 PR Pros discuss Internet Publicity & Book Promotions! http://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 13.43Mb)
Description: This is PART 2. There is way too much technical stuff involved with internet marketing that can overwhelm an author – so I had to invite my guest Marina Woods, Editor-in-Chief and Founder of the Goodgirl Bookclub Online.com back! She keeps it simple and give authors an overview & tips of how they can implement the internet to help increase their books sales and make more money. We will discuss how to set up websites, myspace accounts, podcasts, write ad copy that sells, auto responders, email marketing, online PR, etc. This show will sure to inspire and set authors on the road to “best seller” status! Visit Marina’s website at www.goodgirlbookclubonline.com and get her Ezine. This is PART 2 of the secrets!
14. EPISODE8 – 2 PR Pros discuss Christian Fiction Publicity & Internet PR http://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.74Mb)
Description: There is way too much technical stuff involved with internet marketing that can overwhelm an author. My guest tonight, Marina Woods, Editor-in-Chief and Founder of the Goodgirl Bookclub Online.com, will keep it simple and give authors an overview & tips of how they can implement the internet to help increase their books sales and make more money. We will discuss how to set up websites, myspace accounts, podcasts, write ad copy that sells, auto responders, email marketing, online PR, etc. This show will sure to inspire and set authors on the road to “best seller” status! Visit Marina’s website at www.goodgirlbookclubonline.com and get her Ezine.
15. EPISODE7 – 2 PR Pros discuss publicity in the Gospel Music industryhttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 17.50Mb)
Description: My guest tonight is Bil Carpenter of Capital Entertainment. He is a music journalist who has written for a dozen publications, including People magazine and the Washington Post. He’s also served as a publicist for recording projects artists by artists such as Vickie Winans, Bishop T.D. Jakes and Andrae Crouch. Behind-the-scences music veteran Bil Carpenter’s book “UNCLOUDY DAYS: THE GOSPEL MUSIC ENCYCLOPEDIA” was nominated for NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work by a debut author. Visit www.capitalentertainment.com
16. EPISODE6 – 2 PR Pros discuss Branding and the PR Process http://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 13.38Mb)
Description: My guest tonight is Candace Reese from Envision PR out of ATL . Her services rendered include, but are not limited to Publicist, Multi-media buyer, Advertising Agent, Consulting, Image Branding, Promotions, Event Marketing/Management, Community Relations and Media editing. Envision currently represents: Jeffrey Johnson?media mogul, social activist, CEO of Truth is Power consultancy group, founder of My Nation Online and BET personality from The Jeff Johnson Chronicles, Rap City and The Chop Up; Ephren Taylor II?wealth engineer and Hip-Hop Philanthropist, CEO of Amorocorp & City Capital Corporation. We will discuss: “What is branding? How do I get a brand and how do I build on it? How do get major media to notice me and what strategies can I do right now to brand my business or ministry?”
17. EPISODE5 – 2 PR Pros: How to get Major Media Coveragehttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.87Mb)
Description: Pam Perry will be hosting Annie Jennings of Annie Jennings PR discussing: What does a publicist do anyway? How can I get major media to ‘get out there’? How much does a publicist charge typically? And how can I tell if the publicity firm is a match for my book/ministry or product? When should I hire a publicist?
18. EPISODE4 – 2 PR Pros discuss “How to Do It Yourself”http://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 13.16Mb)
Description: Pam Perry will host PR PRO Phyllis Caddell-M. She is the author of “Do It Yourself Publicity: For those too cheap or too broke to hire a publicist.” They will discuss Phyllis’ book & how to gain media attention, land a TV appearance, pitch, create & implement a publicity campaign, write a press release, pitch letter and produce a complete press kit…and MORE. This one you don’t want to miss. FREE PR TIPS…chime in and ask us anything. Visit www. phylliscaddell.com for more info and get the 115 PR tips booklet to Brand Your Ministry visit www.MinistryMarketingSolutions.com
19. EPISODE3 – 2 PR Pros discuss the “X” Generation and Ministry Marketinghttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.40Mb)
Description: Iris Hoskins, publisher of GXL Magazine and Pam Perry will discuss media and ministry. GXL MAGAZINE, an on-line Christian source connecting this generation to GOD, PEOPLE and BUSINESS. Our content appeals to the generation in their 20’s to 40’s as we indulge into real life issues, spirit led talk and today’s entertainment. Our purpose is to bring a medium that is not boxed into a phrase that negatively defines this generation. But to redefined what this generation is all about.
20. EPISODE2 – 2 PR Pros discuss publicity in the Gospel Communityhttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.07Mb)
Description: 2 PR Pros Pam Perry and Andrea R. Williams discuss the need to help publicize what was happening in the gospel community. Williams said, “When I entered the gospel music industry, it was a learning process for me. In my desire to find out all I could about the industry, I located a wealth of information. But it seemed to me that it wasn’t being shared. I felt there was so much information I knew was vital to many who felt the call of God on their lives to enter music ministry. It was at that point that I felt compelled to share what I had learned with others,” says Williams. Her company is stellar and called Tehillah Enterprises. Emmy-Award winner,Pam Perry, “The PR Coach” will host, see www.MinistryMarketingSolutions.com for more info on her author clients.
21. EPISODE1 – 2 PR Pros discuss the Do’s & Don’t of PRhttp://recordings.talkshoe.com… download (audio/mpeg, 12.06Mb)
Description: Pam Purifoy, of PR Communications Group, is my first guest. PR Pro Pam, as she is affectionately known, is the quintessential communicator and story teller. Her firm offers public relations counsel and implementation, crisis communications management and has a speakers and entertainment bureau, where clients can showcase their talent via the Internet to the world. In honor of National Mentor Month, this show of 2 PR pros will give you the “in’s & out’s” plus the “do’s & don’ts” of great book publicity. Learn how to put together a great press kits, secure media contacts and write back cover copy of books so they sell!
www.myspace.com/pamperryprcoach
Ministry Marketing Solutions, Inc./ 248.426-2300 MARKETING THE MESSAGE
www.MinistryMarketingSolutions.com www.myspace.com/pamperryprcoach
Farmington MI 48336
WHY ARE SO MANY BLACK MEN IN PRISON? A Comprehensive Account of How and Why the Prison Industry Has Become a Predatory Entity in the Lives of African-American Men, and How Mass Targeting, Criminalization, and Incarceration of Black Male Youth has Gone Toward Creating the Largest Prison System in the World.
CHAPTER ONE
MY STORY: My Incarceration, My Release, and My Re-Incarceration
Drugs is a government game . . . a way to rob us of our best Black men,
our army. Everyone who plays the game loses. Then they get you right
back where we started, in slavery! Then they get to say
“This time you did it to yourself.” I won’t play that game.
Sister Souljah
In her book “The Coldest Winter Ever”
I remember it like it was yesterday because it was the worst day of my life. On December 13, 1991, my father’s house was raided by the Organized Crime Unit (OCU) of The Memphis Police Department. They had obtained information from a confidential informant (who turned out to be my best friend who had himself recently been busted by OCU on drug dealing and weapons charges) that I was dealing drugs there and that I would be in possession of a couple of
ounces of crack cocaine. This so-called friend of mine had called me earlier and
asked me to provide him with 9 ounces of cocaine, but I had told him that I
only had 3 ounces. He told me he had someone who wanted to buy them, but
that they did not want it in powder form. He instructed me to convert the
powder cocaine into crack, which I did, and when he came to pick it up he
brought the police with him. (I later found out that the police had instructed
him to have me convert the powder into crack.) I was 18 years old, fresh out of
high school, and had just recently enrolled in the local community college. At
the time, I had my life all planned out; I would only hustle drugs just enough to
pay for all 4 years of college and to buy myself a car, because my mother and
father couldn’t afford to pay for all of this but still expected me to go to college.
I didn’t want to put that big financial burden on my parents anyway, so I decided
to do what I had to do to put myself through school since my grades weren’t
good enough for a scholarship. Looking back, I know now that it was mostly
peer pressure that impelled me to sell drugs. I also was too young and miseducated
to understand the full consequences and the big picture affects of selling drugs.
When you’re young, you are largely ignorant and extremely impressionable, and
especially so if there is no real guidance present in your life, like was my situation
at the time.
They say that human beings are the total sum of their genetics and
environment. The environment that I grew up in largely caused me to consider
selling drugs as a way to finance my college education because I had observed so
many young Black males like myself doing it and making money. Crack cocaine
was everywhere and it was a fairly new phenomenon, but selling it seemed like it
was so easy to do. Almost everyone that I knew seemed to be indulging in the
drug trade in one way or another, and some of the older men had obtained
expensive material possessions that they normally wouldn’t have had to show for
it. They had the nicest cars, nice apartments, and plenty of money to spend on
their multiple girlfriends. I wanted to be the smart one and use my drug dealing
proceeds to pay my way through school and invest in the future. That “smart”
decision turned out to be the worst decision of my life when I ended up getting
busted and found myself facing serious prison time.
The first time I remember seeing crack cocaine was when I was around 12
years old and I was living with my mother in the Castalia Heights Projects in
South Memphis. I was washing dishes one day in the little closet-sized kitchen
of our apartment and looking out of the back door at the same time when I saw
a young man talking to a woman, and he was showing her a little blue colored
plastic seal in his palm. I saw her look closely at the little plastic seal, then hand
him a $20 bill. I remember noticing that the substance inside the seal looked
from a distance like a little beige pebble, and also that the woman buying it
looked like she was ill. At the time, I didn’t know what exactly it was in the
plastic seal because I had never seen nor heard of crack before, but 3 years later
when I went to live with my father in another part of the city, that’s when I
learned what it was I had seen. I had decided to go and live with my father
because I was sick and tired of living in the projects and being poor. I was
looking for a better life, but what I got when I moved with my father turned out
to be even worse than what I had left. When I first moved in with him, his wife,
and my 6 brothers and sisters, my father had a good job, a decent home in a
residential, crime free neighborhood, and had a longstanding habit of buying a
new Cadillac every 2 years. What I didn’t know at the time was that my father
was also using crack cocaine. Everything seemed alright at first, but within a
year of me being there his cocaine addiction went into full swing and major
changes took place within our household. My father gradually started being
broke all of the time, and over a short period of time we went from eating 3
meals a day to eating only 1 meal a day, which usually was made up of something
of the cheapest order like half a smoked sausage apiece or a tuna fish sandwich
and some kool-aid. By it being 7 kids in the house, our school clothes, lunch
money, and all the other financial variables that go into supporting and
maintaining healthy children were cut down to the bare minimum and eventually
cut out all together. I started to see some of the young drug dealers from a
nearby public housing project who went to the same school as me driving around
in my father’s Cadillac, and I would notice that on my father’s payday 3 or 4 of
them would come to our house under the guise of visiting me and my brother
but really to see him, and when they would leave my father would be broke
again from paying off all the debt he had accumulated over that week’s time.
They would give him some more crack on credit, and he and my stepmother
would lock themselves in their bedroom and get high. By me being the oldest of
my siblings, this especially affected me because I knew what was going on. And
since my needs were greater than my younger siblings, I decided to go out and
get a job so that I could make some money to buy food and clothes for myself
and for my brothers and sisters. I started working in fast food restaurants and in
a summer job program at my father’s company. When I started making a little
money and started to buy food and clothes for all of us, my father seemed to take
offense to that. I guess it made him feel like he wasn’t providing for his family
and that maybe I was trying to upstage him or take his place as head of household,
so he started to regard me in a very harsh and mean-spirited fashion. At first he
started making me pay him 1/3 of my paychecks every week as rent for living in
his house, then he just started flat out taking all of my money. I got fed up after
a while with working hard all week only to come home and see my father waiting
on me and asking to “borrow” almost all of my money, knowing he would never
pay it back. One day, instead of going straight home when I got off work like I
normally did, I went across the street to one of my friend’s house and stayed all
night, with the intention of going home when my father left to go to work that
next morning. He called over to my friend’s house time and time again asking if
I was over there, and I’d told my friend to tell him that I wasn’t there. That next
morning, I was hastily awakened by my friend and told that my dad was running
across the street towards the house. I guess he had known I was there all along.
Before I could get somewhere and hide, he burst in the door and commenced to
punching and kicking me as if I were an adult stranger instead of his 16 year old
son. This did it for me. After he had beaten me and gone off to work, I packed
up my clothes and belongings and had a friend take me back to my mother’s
apartment in the projects, where I stayed for only 4 or 5 months. I ended up
moving back in with my father despite the circumstances. Except for the not
eating and stuff, it was a teenager’s heaven at my father’s house because he and
my stepmother were so busy getting high and working that there was no
supervision or discipline and we could just run wild and do as we pleased. My
mother on the other hand was very strict, and if I had stayed there with her I
knew I wouldn’t have had as much freedom to come and go as I pleased and to
date girls, not to mention that the living conditions weren’t that great there
either. Plus, while living with her I’d had to take the city bus to get to my jobs
that were over on my father’s side of town. I still had to pay him a third of my
pay when I moved back, but I eventually quit my jobs because he started back
taking all of my money again.
About a year after I had moved back, my father’s neighborhood was being
invaded by some Crip gang members from California who were trying to induct
the younger men in the area into their gang and organize and expand the small
amount of drug dealing that was going on there. One by one the young men in
my father’s neighborhood were pulled into their crew, and before long the once
residential and serene neighborhood became a haven for crack selling, gun toting,
blue bandana-wearing Crip gang members. The second oldest of my siblings,
who is only 6 months younger than me, got hooked up with them first; they let
him sell $20 rocks for them and paid him $5 for each one sold. Soon crackheads
from all over the area had gotten wind that our neighborhood had plenty of the
good stuff, because the Crips were bringing it in from California and it was
purer than what they were used to. Our neighborhood was turned into a full
fledged dope track almost overnight; with a constant flow of traffic coming
through there 24 hours a day, every day. I started seeing my little brother with
hundreds of dollars that he’d made just standing out on the street with the rest
of the men in the neighborhood and selling the drugs to people who drove up
and asked for it. I stayed away from it at first, but around the time that I was
almost about ready to graduate from high school, my dad was deeply in debt
and had inducted himself into a residential drug rehab, so I figured that this was
probably the best and maybe the only way for me to get the money to buy
myself what I needed and put myself through college. I knew that my parents
couldn’t do it and that there wasn’t enough time for me to work a job and save
up enough money. I knew that going to school would be my best chance to
escape a life of being poor like my parents were. I jumped into hustling drugs
head first, and after doing it for about 6 months, when I was just about to have
the money that I needed, I got busted.
When my family and I heard that the least amount of time I could get for
that small amount of drugs I was caught with was a 10 year sentence of which
85% would have to actually be served in prison, we couldn’t believe it. It just
didn’t sound right. I had seen and heard about numerous Black men killing
other Black men in the streets in cold blood and plea bargaining and getting less
time than that. We just could not believe that those drugs carried that much
time. (My mother later told me that she was so mentally distraught when she
heard the amount of time I would have to serve that she began to regularly walk
out of her house leaving the front door wide open when she would be going
somewhere.) We just knew that because it was my first offense and such a small
amount of drugs that I would be given a plea bargain for probation or maybe a
6 month sentence at the most, instead of 10 years. After many inquiries and
failed attempts at negotiation, when the prosecution would offer me no less
than a 10 year sentence on a plea, I opted to go to trial, hoping for some sort of
divine miracle since I had already made statements to the police admitting
ownership of the drugs. It was not to be. At my trial in 1992, in Federal Judge
Julia Gibbon’s courtroom, I was convicted of possession with intent to distribute
over 50 grams of crack cocaine and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 5 years of
probation. My life, like so many other young Black men in America who’ve been
through this same mind blowing and numbing experience, would never be the
same again.
The morning that I left the Federal Detention Center in Mason, Tennessee
on the prison bus heading to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, I was
scared and didn’t really know what to expect. This was my first time ever going
to jail, and here they were sending me to not only a high security penitentiary,
but the one that had the most notorious reputation of all the federal prisons at
the time. It was 2 busloads of men, all handcuffed and shackled, the majority of
whom were young Black men around my age who had never been to a penitentiary
before either and were just as afraid as I was. We all had heard about the rumors
and horror stories and had seen the movies depicting prison life as full of drama
and violence and homosexuality. We had all heard about the humiliating greeting
that the hardened convicts supposedly give you when you first come in, and the
ever watching eyes that would be looking for any sign of weakness in you. We
also were foretold that in federal prison there was what was called a “homeboy”
mentality among the inmates; meaning that men grouped up with other men
who were from their same city or state and stuck together with them against
everyone else in the prison, somewhat like a protective gang. We were warned to
only trust our “homeboys” when we got there. (It is interesting to note that the
Whites, who are the minority in prison, stuck together just because they were
White and not based on where they were from.) All of these things we had heard
were going through our minds on that bus and we consoled each other by
openly discussing our fear so that no one would feel like he was alone or the only
one who was afraid. When we finally pulled up to the prison after an all day
drive, our fear was intensified by the Gothic, castle-like appearance of the prison.
It looked and felt like everything we had heard. It had the tall gun towers, the
big 30 foot whitewashed concrete wall around it, and a vibe of thick tension and
despair permeating the air. We were taken off of the buses and to a large holding
cell where we were individually strip searched and photographed and
fingerprinted, which is the standard procedure anytime you first come into a
prison. When we all had finished getting processed and clothed in our new
prison garb of khakis, t-shirts, and steel-toed boots, we were free to roam around
the prison compound and check out our new home. When I hit the compound
and began to look around, I started to feel like I was a juvenile inside of an adult
prison. Most of the men I saw were much older and had already been locked up
for a long time and had full beards and mustaches and looked like bodybuilders
from all the weightlifting they had been doing. I, on the other hand, was totally
new to prison life, and looked it. I had no facial hair, had a little boy faded
haircut, and weighed in at about 150 pounds soaking wet with bricks in my
pockets. I will never forget that first day. To say that it was a culture shock is an
extreme understatement. Me and a friend who had also just come on the bus
walked around together and went into the prison gymnasium where men were
playing full court basketball and saw a cheerleader squad of 10 or 12 homosexuals
on the sidelines, cheering for the teams and actually doing the feminine,
cheerleader-type antics that real female cheerleaders do. This was so shocking to
us and we couldn’t help but stare at them, which turned out to be a big mistake.
As we walked by them, one of the homosexuals reached out and suggestively
rubbed my friend’s arm and made a sexual comment. My friend, who was a
fairly big guy, immediately grabbed the homosexual by his throat and jacked
him up against the wall and told him that if he ever touched him or said
something like that to him again he would kill him. When he let him go, the
homosexual ran out into the middle of the basketball court, stopped the game,
and started talking to this big Lou Ferrigno looking guy who had been playing.
When I saw the guy and the homosexual point in our direction and start to walk
toward us, I broke off from my friend in an attempt to circle around to the back
of them, just in case there was going to be trouble. The big guy came up and
asked my friend what had happened between him and the homosexual. My
friend told him that the homosexual had put his hands on him and that yes; he
had jacked him up and told him that if he ever did it again he would kill him.
When the big guy heard this, he went on a chastising tirade against the
homosexual, cursing him out and telling him to stop messing with people and
to stop doing stuff to get him in trouble. He then turned to my friend and told
him that if the homosexual ever did something like to him again, he had his
permission to “fuck him up”.
That was the first of many crazy and unthinkable observations and experiences
that I was to go through over the next 9 years of my life. I did time in prisons
with security levels that ranged from high to minimum, from penitentiaries to
camps. I traveled all over the country doing my time and met people of all
ethnicities and nationalities and from all walks of life, and saw all sorts of things
go on. I was in 2 riots. I saw people get killed, raped, assaulted, and extorted. I
saw knife wars go down on the yard between different groups that sometimes
involved 200 or 300 men; Whites against Blacks, Blacks against Mexicans,
Jamaicans against Muslims, Muslims against the Crips or Vice Lords, Blacks
from Washington D.C. against Blacks from Detroit or St. Louis, etc. I saw grown,
rusty, heavily mustached men French kiss one another and walk around the yard
holding hands and actually having monogamous sexual relationships with one
another. I saw men get killed and seriously hurt over another man a great number
of times. But believe it or not, most of these types of activities were the exception
to the rule and not the rule. There is no place on earth where respect is given so
much priority as it is in prison, being that your health and well-being depends
on giving and demanding respect. In most prisons, if you carry yourself like a
man and show no immaturity or weakness, you will more than likely have no
problems. Generally, if a problem does arise between 2 individuals, it spirals out
of control and ends up involving dozens of men because of the pervasiveness of
the protective clique or “homeboy” mentality that is the culture of prison life.
Most of the inmate-to-inmate problems in prison arise from arguments over the
television or the phone or from men either partaking in gambling, drugs, contact
prison sports, or homosexuals. If you avoid all those things, it is unlikely that
you will have any major problems with other convicts.
When I first came into the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the previous few
years before I came, the prison system was nothing like it is now but it was going
through the process of changes that led up to it being what it is today. There
were only 50 or so federal prisons in the country, and in terms of prison standards
of living, all federal prisons, including the high security penitentiaries, were
posh and accommodating. The overwhelming majority of those inmates in
medium, low, and minimum security federal prisons were white collar criminals
and people who had committed big money crimes, and they were almost all
White. There was premium carpeting on the floors, 1 man rooms, you could
wear your own street clothing and you could actually have cash money in your
pocket. The quality of the food that was served in the cafeterias was equal to or
above that of an average restaurant, and the commissaries carried pretty much
everything that the grocery stores on the outside had. The health care that was
provided for the inmates was excellent, and all medications and treatments were
free of charge. There were putt-putt mini-golf courses and swimming pools, all
the channels of cable television, and 300-seat movie theaters. There was lots of
exercise equipment made available to the prisoners; free weights, computerized
treadmills, stationary bikes, etc. They even brought in professional trainers and
instructors from the outside to teach yoga and exercise classes. Entertainment
like circus type acts, motorcycle clubs and car clubs, motivational speakers that
sometimes included politicians and celebrities, and even semi-pro basketball
teams were brought into the prisons on a regular basis. The inmates were also
periodically allowed to take furloughs, which are unescorted trips home for a
couple of days to visit with their families in order to maintain family ties. The
correctional officers as a rule treated the inmates with respect, and the overall
atmosphere was lax and comfortable. Back then, the federal prison system would
educate inmates free of charge and made all kinds of Pell grants and financial aid
available for them to be able to obtain the college degrees of their choice, and
provided them with training for any job skill that they might desire to obtain
while in prison. The prison jobs, (everyone in federal prison must perform some
type of work) paid relatively well, especially if you worked in the Unicor factory
where workers were able to make up to or above a thousand dollars a month. A
person serving time could actually maintain his household on the outside, pay
bills, and provide for his children from the prison job pay, or at the very least
save up and have some money in his pocket when he finally walked out the
prison doors. Unicor factories are the manufacturers of most of the amenities
that the government and the U.S military sells and utilizes; the uniforms, chairs,
desks, wires for the military aircraft, blankets, sheets, mattresses, etc. (Unicor
factories are the cornerstones of the prison set-up and are so cost efficient that
they could afford to pay every worker, inmate or civilian, $40,000 a year and
still make a bigger profit that almost any private sector corporation, if indeed
Unicor was a free market company with the government contract to perform
those services instead of an exclusively Bureau of Prisons ran company.) These
are all the reasons why people used to refer to the federal prison system as “Club
Fed”, because the jails were really similar to and ran like country clubs. There
were no jail bars anywhere. To do your time in such a fashion was less stressful
and pretty easy, and I caught the last year or two of that era before the entire
prison system was revamped and totally restructured. The Federal Bureau of
Prisons has since become one of the fastest growing arms of the federal government.
In 1980, the bureau’s budget was 330 million dollars and there were 24,000
inmates in 44 prisons. Compare that to the 2002 budget of 4.6 billion dollars
to service 102 prisons housing 165,000-plus inmates, with projections of it
getting to 190,000 by 2005. Just 1 year prior, in 2001, the Federal BOP was
only third largest with 142,530. Now, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is the
largest prison system segment in the country, closely followed by California’s
prison system with 161,387 and Texas with 146,773. The federal prison
population is up 700% since 1980. These statistics, I believe, are a direct result
of Bureau of Prison policy changes due to a shift in governmental perspective
and laws being constructed and put on the books to reflect that perspective.
The BOP implemented its changes in coordination with the new and growing
influx of Blacks into the federal prison system. This “new breed” of federal inmates
was serving much longer sentences and was largely poor, uneducated, and young;
in stark contrast to the usually White, well off, small sentence-having “old breed”.
A lot of these young Blacks were coming into the federal prison system with
sentences that would require them to do more time in jail than they themselves
had already been alive. Over a very short course of time, Blacks became the equal
and then the overwhelming majority in federal prison in terms of numbers.
New prisons were being built everywhere, and predictably enough, all of the
pre-existing perks and accommodations that everyone had heard about that made
doing time in the Feds “sweet” vs. doing time in state prison disappeared with
every new federal prison that was being built to accommodate the swelling growth
in inmates. Over 65% of the federal prisons that exist today were built in or
after 1985, which correlates with the implementation of the Mandatory
Minimum Sentencing Guidelines and the Crack vs. Powder law, which were the
main causes of all these young Black boys coming to federal prison. All of the
newly built prisons were uniformed under these new harsher and much different
provisions, and the majority of the pre-existing old prisons were eventually brought
into uniformity with the newly built ones. The thin wooden doors that were the
norm in federal prisons were taken off of the rooms and replaced with either iron
bars or thick steel safe-like doors. Gone were the carpet and the psychologically
soothing flowered wall paper and wall paint colors that used to cover the walls.
The water fountains and flower gardens that were used for decoration on the
compounds were uprooted. The 1 man rooms were turned into 2 and 3 man
cells, with the television rooms being converted into 8, 10, and 12 man cells.
Prisons that were built to house 800 men were packed with 2,500. The
commissaries and the cable television channels were pared down to a bare
minimum, and we were told that because we were convicted criminals we didn’t
deserve “premium” cable channels and food items. The free weights and expensive
exercise equipment were eventually pulled out, and the prison job pay was lowered
to a maximum $120 a month for the Unicor factory workers and to a miniscule
$5 to $20 a month for all the other job details. Because necessities like washing
powder, deodorant, and phone calls to your family, which were formerly given
to inmates periodically and free of charge, was not given any longer, this lowered
pay forced inmates to either do without or ask their families to send them money
to purchase these items and phone credits from the commissary. The phone calls
went from being unlimited to being allowed only 300 minutes a month of
phone talk time in 15 minute increments at almost $10 per increment for long
distance calls. The Pell grants and financial aid for college courses were
discontinued, the putt-putt golf courses and swimming pools were concreted
and sanded in, and the unescorted furloughs came to a cease. Even the possession
of porno magazines, which was formerly allowed, was outlawed. The meals went
from Grade A quality food that sometimes included steaks and shrimp to the
cheapest food possible; meals mostly made up of processed soybean or mystery
meats and lots of potatoes and rice. All the medicines that used to be free were
now sold to the inmates in the commissary instead. The posturpedic-styled
thick mattresses and spring-bottomed bed frames that were the norm in federal
prison were taken out and replaced with flat 2 inch thick mattresses and sheet
steel-bottomed bed frames that basically make you feel like you’re sleeping on
the floor when you lay on them. As for the overall educational availabilities,
manual labor courses became the focus of the curriculum; brick masonry,
carpentry, plumbing, and assembly line skills. Federal prisons as a whole took
on a sort of plantational structure and a very different kind of oppressionistic
aura that formerly was not present. Inmates became more limited in ways that
they could move around or things that they could say and do. The majority of
the white collar criminals were sent off to minimum security prison camps,
where there were no barbed wire fences or walls around them and where they
could still be afforded some of the same privileges that they were used to.
At this time, corporations were allowed to jump in and profitize off of the
new prison industry boom with privately owned prisons. From 1985 to 1995,
prison beds under private corporate management grew from 935 to 63,595.
Professionals then predicted that there would be some 350,000-plus privately
run prison beds in the U.S. by the year 2004, which is an increase of almost
49,000% from 1985. Wackenhut Corrections and CCA (Corrections Corporation
of America) emerged as the biggest and most well known private prison companies.
They are profit motivated conglomerates of privately run prisons that were started
for the purposes of taking advantage of the budding inmate “market” during the
mid-late 80’s and to make large sums of capital off of it for their investors, via
state and federal government contracts. These private prisons usually receive
between $25 and $30 per day per prisoner from the government, which is
about $25,000-$30,000 per day if the prison houses 1,000 inmates in it. CCA
is the frontrunner in the corporate private prison sector of the “market”, and is
typically one of the more recommended and profitable stocks on the stock market.
Since the big incarceration movement, there have been scores of CCA prisons
built all across the country. In 1985, there were less than 5 prisons owned or
managed by CCA. In 2003, CCA alone owned or managed over 65 facilities and
housed over 70,000 prisoners nationwide. The major investors and profiteers in
CCA are politically connected high profile people or individuals in the know
who invested at the IPO stage (the Initial Public Offering of the stock) because
they had first hand, dependable information that prisons would be a most
profitable investment in the upcoming future. (Some are very famous celebrities
and ex-politicians, so many of them set up their investment ventures in such
ways that their involvement is secretive and cannot be easily traced or verified,
therefore I can only speak on prevalent rumors about their doings.) Some took
the opportunity to take advantage of the prison boom by setting up companies
to manufacture generic foods, clothing, and cosmetics to sell to the federal prison
system for inmate purchase and use. Keefe, a multimillion dollar company which
makes snack foods and drinks to be sold in prison commissaries all across the
nation, is rumored to be owned in large stake by late former President Ronald
Reagan, Nancy Reagan, and The Bush family. Keefe virtually has a monopoly
on the snack food and inmate amenities market for federal prisons. Bob Barker,
founder of Bob Barker Inc., is the primary manufacturer of boots, soaps, clothing,
and other items for federal and state prisoners, and allegedly utilizes cheap labor
in Mexico to do it. Only well connected, high profile, and trusted people within
certain circles would be able to secure these lucrative contracts with the
government.
Some of America’s biggest financial institutions took advantage of the prison
boom situation as well. Financial monoliths like Merrill Lynch and Co., Prudential
Insurance Company of America, and Goldman Sachs and Co. got involved and
competed with one another to underwrite lucrative construction jobs with private
tax-exempt bonds that didn’t require voter approval. Other hallmark companies
also found ways to profit from the exploitation of prison labor. (TWA, McDonalds,
Texas Instruments, Dell, Kaiser Steel, Spring, Microsoft, Victoria’s Secret, Pierre
Cardin, MCI, IBM, Motorola, Toys R Us, AT&T, Revlon, Eddie Bauer, Lexus,
Boeing, Honeywell, Nordstrom, Jostens.) Public officials cashed in on the
blossoming industry as well. Former Tennessee Governors Don Sundquist and
Lamar Alexander and Tennessee House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh as well as a slew of
others invested gigantic sums of money through their spouses into the new gold
mine prison industry. They made tremendous profits while simultaneously using
their elective government positions to push for more and harsher laws to be put
on the books to ensure that their prisons are filled and more are built. I’m using
Governors Sundquist and Alexander and Speaker Naifeh as examples because
they are from my home state and I am very familiar with their doings. CCA
founder Tom Beasley is a former business partner and very close personal friend
of both Sundquist and Alexander. In 1998, Sundquist tried unsuccessfully to
get most if not all of Tennessee’s prisons privatized so that he could bolster his
own (his wife’s) CCA stock value. Alexander had done the exact same thing 13
years earlier when he was Governor. In 2002, one of Governor Sundquist’s last
big initiatives as a lame-duck Governor was to draft and propose a plan to add
7,000 new prison beds in Tennessee, much of which would be either owned or
managed by CCA. There are so many examples of this type of abuse and
malfeasance going on across the nation, but it is all kept very quiet and among
friends. This type of activity is a sort of legal insider trading, because the owners
of the prison stock are ensuring the growth and profitability of their investment
by tailor-making the laws to ensure that more people will be imprisoned and for
longer lengths of time. It is obvious that this type of corruption would arise
where you have legislators and government officials who have a financial selfinterest
in prisons and who also view prisons as a tool for stimulating economic
development.
Whoever originally came up with the idea to industrialize and then capitalize
off of the criminalization and incarceration of millions of Black men could arguably
have their names mentioned in the same breath as the Henry Ford’s, John
Rockefeller’s, and Bill Gate’s of the world, but more befittingly with the Hitler’s,
Stalin’s, and Mussolini’s. The overall grand scheme of it, with its societal probability
hedges that keep the revolving doors of prisons swinging with the more-likelythan-
not entrance and return of the Black and disenfranchised, is ingenious in
its setup and sinister in its purpose. The penal system is indeed being utilized as
an economy stabilizing tool for the nation and as a predatory entity against the
Black men of America. That fact is especially obvious when you’re on the inside
looking out. Factories, steel mills, large convenient stores and malls used to
bring the small cities and counties of the nation jobs to bolster their attractiveness
as a place to live and to raise their tax revenue and build their small economies.
Today, prisons are one of the most sought after economy boosters by these low
population, low revenue areas. For the past 15 years or so, prisons have been
strategically placed in virtually unknown backwoods areas like Estill, South
Carolina; Manchester, Kentucky; Beckley, West Virginia; Forrest City, Arkansas;
and Yazoo, Mississippi; little towns that you would be hard pressed trying to
find on a map. They are being built in complexes; meaning that 3 or more
1,000-plus bed prisons of different security levels are placed in 1 area together.
Upon arrival of these prisons, the small towns’ populations always grow
substantially, other businesses come in, and the unemployment rates drop
drastically due to the several hundred good paying jobs the prisons create. It’s
also the norm that these small towns are typically full of rednecks and racist
Whites who are mostly related or at least closely familiar with one another and
have no regard or respect for the mostly Black male prisoners that they are put in
charge of overseeing and managing. A lot of them usually have never had any
real dealings or close contact with Blacks in their entire lives. They usually have
a blatant us-against-them mentality, and as an inmate you are totally at their
mercy. It is true that the closest thing to being a slave is being in prison, but
under these types of circumstances it’s not just close, you are a slave. You have
absolutely no rights that they are bound to respect, and if a disagreement occurs
between an inmate and a guard the inmate is always wrong, even if his gripe is
totally legitimate by their own policies and rules. A prisoner can easily get thrown
into isolation in the S.H.U. (Special Housing Unit) for several months simply
for disagreeing with the wrong staff member about something, and if they should
decide for whatever reason to beat you up or punish you in some extra-extravagant
way that they are not supposed to, the staff members all stick together and cover
it up. I have personally seen and also been the victim of assaults by prison guards
on numerous occasions. In 1993, when I got transferred from the Atlanta
penitentiary to a newly built prison in Manchester, Kentucky, the first day I was
there I was assaulted by a prison guard and ended up with 2 cracked ribs. I had
just gotten off of the bus that brought me there and someone had pointed me in
the direction of the case manager for my assigned housing unit so that I could
ask him to let me make a phone call to my family to let them know where I was.
My case manager happened to be standing outside in front of the cafeteria talking
to an officer. I stood a respectful distance from them and patiently waited until
they would finish talking. The officer, whose name was Worthington, then turned
around, saw me standing there, and told me to turn around and cuff up, meaning
put the handcuffs on, because according to him I was listening to them talk.
When I refused to cuff up, he swept me off my feet, slammed me face down on
the concrete, and dropped his knee on my back, which cracked my ribs. I was
then taken to isolation where I stayed for 7 months, and while I was in there I
was allowed no phone calls and was not allowed to send out or receive mail. A
few days after it happened, Warden Luttrell and the captain, who is the chief of
security in prison, came through the S.H.U. and saw me. I was in severe pain
and my side was black and blue. I showed it to them and asked to see the doctor.
The captain told me, right in front of the Warden, that “By the time you do see
the doctor, you will be healed.” (That Warden, ironically, was the Sheriff of
Shelby County in Memphis at the time this book was published.) I’ve seen so
many men get thrown in the hole or isolation for 2, 3, even 4 straight years,
sometimes for just saying something that some staff member didn’t like or agree
with. Truth be told, some of America’s deepest darkest secrets have occurred
behind prison walls; from basic violations of civil rights to actual torture, beatings,
and hangings being committed by prison guards.
While at that newly built prison in Kentucky, I was eventually released from
the hole (after my ribs healed) and put back into general population. Shortly
thereafter, I observed dozens of White inmates get their sentences reduced and
get immediately released because of a decision by Congress’ Sentencing
Commission to revamp the LSD drug laws, which at the time were very harsh.
The Sentencing Commission had voted to change the way that the possessed
amount of the drug was tabulated, which effectively cut the sentences of those
incarcerated for the drug by 50%. There were only around 500 people in federal
prison for LSD at the time, and almost all of them were White. Congress agreed
with the Sentencing Commission that LSD defendants weren’t getting a fair
shake and that their sentences were too high. Most were given immediate releases
in November ’93 when Congress decided not to hold a voting session to veto the
commission’s recommendation to lower the penalties for LSD. (When the
Sentencing Commission, which is an independent panel of sentencing experts
hand picked by the President, makes a recommendation to Congress, it
automatically becomes law on the first of November of that same year unless
Congress takes decisive steps to vote it down beforehand.) It was maybe 3 or 4
days after the first of November that I awoke and looked out of my cell widow
and saw 30 or 40 White inmates, who formerly had 15 and 20 year sentences,
lined up at the prison entrance gate getting ready to be released. Most of them
had not even been locked up for a third of their sentence. I distinctly remember
how the prison staff and case managers scrambled to get them released as soon as
possible after they had verified the change of law. This action by Congress gave
most of us who were serving mandatory sentences for crack cocaine some hope
that we too would soon get some kind of relief. If Congress thought the LSD
sentencing law was unfair and that too many people were in jail for too long
because of it, then surely they would see fit to change the Crack vs. Powder law,
where there was absolutely no doubt that it was too harsh and was the direct
reason behind the overflow of offenders into the federal prison system.
Just as we had hoped, The Sentencing Commission, under President Clinton,
began to make inquiries into the illegitimacies and disparities encompassing the
Crack vs. Powder law. They subsequently began to make recommendation after
recommendation to Congress to repeal the law based on what they saw as clear
evidence that there was no justifiable reason to give 100 times more jail time to
a poor street level crack dealer than to a high level multimillionaire powder
dealer. The Commission found that there was also clear evidence of racial inequities
in the effects of the large sentences given out for cocaine in the form of crack.
The Commission pointed out that since the Crack vs. Powder law was enacted,
Blacks sentenced in the federal system had 49% higher sentences than Whites
sentenced in the federal system. They agreed that cocaine is cocaine no matter
how it is consumed or sold or who sells it, so everyone who is sentenced for it
should be given a sentence determined only by the amount possessed and not
take into consideration the “form” that it is in because that is irrelevant within
that context. President Clinton himself had even proclaimed that the Crack vs.
Powder law was wrong and that it should be changed. He had promised Black
voters he would get it changed during his 1991 and 1995 Presidential campaigns.
(In reality, I believe that Clinton knew all along that it would never happen, but
decided to just tell Black folks what they wanted to hear.) The Sentencing
Commission continuously made recommendations to revamp the law, all of
which Congress vehemently voted down. In 1995, the Commission made its
third recommendation to Congress to change the law, and the rumor had been
spread throughout the prison populations that this was the year that they would
finally correct the serious wrong that had been allowed to stay on the books for
far too long already. Everyone was hopeful that Congress would not step in this
time and prevent it from being enacted into law. In October, just 1 month
before the recommendation by the Commission would have become automatically
instituted into law, Congress held a vote on the issue, which was a good indication
to us that they would once again turn it down. The debate and voting session on
the issue in The House of Representatives was broadcast live on C-SPAN, and
probably every single television in the entire federal prison system was tuned in
to that channel when it was being conducted. I was in the Federal Correctional
Institution of Memphis at the time, and I know that every TV there was on CSPAN
and almost everybody there was watching, even those who didn’t have
crack cocaine cases. This was the first time many of us had taken the time to
actually watch Congress doing its business of voting on issues, and everyone
who had been sentenced under the Crack vs. Powder law was enthralled with
anxiety and hope, despite the odds. We all squeezed into the television rooms
and sat nearly motionless and watched the debate from beginning to end, which
was nearly 3 hours.
When an issue is being debated and voted on in The House of Representatives,
the lawmakers that are for or against the piece of legislation at hand traditionally
sit on opposite sides of the aisle from each other. But on this particular day, it
looked like they were separated by race instead of their voting intention. The
Black Caucus was on one side of the aisle along with a few White Representatives
who were empathetic and agreed with them that this was a bad law. On the
other side were the other 350-plus Representatives who wanted the Crack vs.
Powder law to stay just as it was. There was no Democrat vs. Republican
partisanship on that day; the voting session was blatantly conducted, from our
spectators’ point of view, as Black vs. White. Despite the fact that the entire
Black Caucus was Democrats, the White Democrats did not side with them on
this issue. The “Black” side was led by Rep. Maxine Waters of California and
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. An ex-federal prosecutor out of Florida named
Bill McCollum led the “White” side. The side where the Black Caucus sat was
mostly empty because there were only 39 Blacks in Congress at the time, but
the other side was full to capacity. What we would see play out in that
Congressional session would stir an already fermented anger in every one of us
who was watching and who was affected by this law.
The Black Caucus had brought in expert witnesses who were chemists and
law enforcement officials. The chemists gave concurring testimony that crack
cocaine and powder cocaine are chemically the same drug, and that any sentencing
disparity between the two is not justified. The law enforcement officials testified
that they in fact are normally given orders to focus on low income urban areas in
their policing and undercover drug operations. Rep. Maxine Waters, while
confronting the bastion of resistance by the White Congressmen who stood firm
on their position even in the face of righteous argument and hard facts to the
contrary of what they were espousing, became highly emotional in her
chastisement of them. She told them that she knew that if it were their sons,
brothers and nephews going to federal prison for long stretches of time for first
time offenses and small petty amounts of the drug, that they would be head over
heels trying to remedy the Crack vs. Powder sentencing laws, or that the laws
never would have been implemented in the first place, but because it was only
Blacks being affected they didn’t care. Since there are 435 Representatives in the
House, those wishing to speak are allotted only 5 minutes apiece so that everyone
wishing to speak can be afforded the opportunity to do so, but Mrs. Waters
became so upset with the obviously racist overtones involved with the opposition’s
argument that she repeatedly refused to leave the podium when her time would
run out. Other members of the Black Caucus would stand and give her minutes
of their time so that she would not be forced out of the hearing because of her
refusal to adhere to the rules and relinquish the podium. Whenever she would
finally leave the microphone, she would snatch her papers from the podium and
march defiantly back to her seat glaring back at the other side, only to get right
back up and march back to the podium as soon as one of them said something
that wasn’t right. Her passion about the issue was so strong, and her courage and
willingness to tell it like it was in plain language made me fall in love with her
right then and there. I think a lot of us did, and moreso than just the fact that
they refused to change the Crack vs. Powder law, the way they disregarded and
disrespected Mrs. Waters during the debate that day is the main reason why
numerous federal prisons all over the country erupted in riots and demonstrations
almost immediately afterwards. (Those insurrections were history-making in
magnitude and scope just like the one that took place in Attica in 1971, because
they caused the government to have the first ever nationwide prison lockdown;
meaning all federal prisons and some state prisons in the country went onto
lockdown status simultaneously. Unlike Attica though, most people are not even
aware that this happened. I have never seen something of such massiveness be
kept so quiet.)
Right before the vote was conducted, Rep. Bill McCollum stood up and
told Mrs. Waters that if she was looking for someone to blame for the affects of
the Crack vs. Powder law on the Black community, she should be aware that the
only reason that law enforcement has such a big presence in the Black communities
and the main reason so many young Black men are in prison for crack is because
the decent Black residents in those areas continually call the police requesting
for them to come and arrest the drug dealing troublemakers. He said that the
police were trying to serve the Black community’s interests by doing what those
residents requested, so she should be applauding their progress instead of
lamenting them. Mrs. Waters in return blasted him, telling him that he was
insulting her intelligence and the intelligence of Black people by suggesting
that they (Mr. McCollum and the police) cared more and knew more about the
Black community’s interests and needs than she and the Black Caucus did.
When the vote on the bill was finally conducted, it was overwhelmingly voted
down as we all had suspected it would be, and now there was a fresh new element
added to our anger and our bitterness about the whole situation. We could tell
by the apologetic and overtly racist stance that the White members of Congress
had taken on the issue during the debate, coupled with the condescending
attitude that they had shown toward Mrs. Waters and the other leaders in the
Black Caucus, that they would never voluntarily change this law. We also knew
that the Blacks in Congress would have an extremely hard time even getting this
issue up for a vote again because The Black Caucus has very nominal power on
Capitol Hill when it comes to making things happen in the specific best interest
of the Black citizenry of this country. There is now and has always been too few
of them to make a real difference, and even though they always lobby and vote as
a bloc on a lot of key issues where Blacks have an interest, they are for the most
part unsuccessful in attempts to make any across the board changes or
implementations of law in any significant way. The only times that they are able
to do it is when it is something that the White lawmakers consider to be a winwin
scenario for them also, and this particular issue evidently does not fit that
description as far as they are concerned.
That next morning, everybody in FCI Memphis was up in arms and expressing
a desire to do something to make a statement of defiance about what had
happened the day before. Men secretly began to organize and discuss what, if
anything, should be done. It was loosely decided that we should tear the prison
up. Most of the riots and demonstrations that I had personally seen and the
ones I’d heard about were all about things like bad food, wanting more privileges,
or just pent up anger. I had never before thought that so much unity and
determination among inmates in prison would ever be possible to the extent
that they would mount an organized demonstration for a serious political and
big-picture purpose. This instance proved to be different. All of the gangs that
were supposed to be enemies came together. Even the Aryan Nation and the
Dirty White Boys, who normally didn’t collude with the Blacks on any level or
for any reason, took the opportunity to express regret for what Congress did and
actually were on the front lines of initiating the riot even though none of them
had crack cases. (My personal belief is that they just saw an opportunity to
express their own hatred and malignance for the government and just wanted to
go off and tear the prison up no matter what the cause, and were realistic enough
to know that it would take everybody participating to do it sufficiently.) Before
a decision of what exactly was to be done and how it was to be carried out was
finalized, we got wind that the Federal Institution in Talladega, Alabama had
already kicked off a full-scale riot earlier that morning. The local news was covering
it and they said that it was believed that the riot was pertaining to the fact that
the crack cocaine sentencing law wasn’t passed. When everybody at my prison
heard that, there was nothing left for discussion; we would definitely be next.
The prison administrators at FCI Memphis had also been made aware of
what was happening in Alabama and were put on alert by Bureau officials in
Washington D.C. to be watchful of their own inmate population because FCI
Memphis is the closest federal prison to the one in Alabama. The guards could
sense tension in the air and could see groups of men formulating and whispering,
so they quietly tried to lock the prison down 1 unit at a time. My unit was the
first unit they attempted to lock down. Men in my unit were still undecided
and were skeptical about whether everybody would stick together in the entire
prison in order to pull the demonstration off right. They were mostly still standing
around talking when 15 or 20 guards came in with batons out, yelling for us to
go to our cells and close the doors. It took a while but they finally got most of
the inmates in my unit locked down in their cells. When I went to my cell, I
looked out of the window and saw a group of maybe 50 or 60 convicts convened
in the center of the yard talking amongst each other. I recognized them as the
leaders of the Gangster Disciples Gang, the Crips, The Aryan Nation and The
Dirty White Boys. The administration quickly abandoned the quiet approach
and over the loudspeaker had started calling for all inmates to immediately
report to their units, obviously to be locked down. The officers on the yard were
yelling for everyone to keep moving and not to stop and talk to one another and
were trying to surround the gang members, who despite the instructions being
given over the loudspeakers were still just standing there talking. All of a sudden,
that whole crowd of gang leaders struck out running full speed toward the
recreation yard, and the guards took off running in the opposite direction, yelling
and waving for all the other officers and staff members to get off the yard. The
person on the loudspeaker intercom started yelling at the top of his lungs for all
staff members to get out of the buildings quickly and to run to the front gate to
make it out of the prison. A few moments later, I saw all of the men who had ran
to the recreation yard now returning to the middle of the compound where they
were at first, all of them wielding weight lifting bars and iron weights in their
hands that they’d gotten off of the weight pile. By now they had doubled in
numbers and had started to chase some of the already running officers towards
the front gate. Some of them broke into the Unicor factory building, trampling
over an overzealous, thoroughly hated Uncle-Tom Black lieutenant by the name
of Montgomery, who was blocking the factory entrance doorway trying to protect
all of the computers and equipment that was in there. They stampeded through
there and completely demolished the place, then proceeded to the commissary
building where all the food items were stored. By now pretty much everyone
who wasn’t locked down had joined in the fray, and all you could hear was glass
breaking, running and screaming. I went and looked out of my front cell door
and saw several secretaries trying desperately to get out of the building, but a
pack of masked inmates had the door blocked off. Evidently earlier in that day a
lot of men had fashioned masks out of cloth and skull caps, and now all of a
sudden it seemed that everybody had something over their faces. The women
that were trapped inside the building were hysterical and were screaming and
begging not to be hurt or raped. I heard one secretary voluntarily yell out that
everyone could have a turn with her if they would just let her live to go home to
her children. I heard some of the men with the masks on that were now running
around inside my building consoling the women and telling them that this riot
was not about that sort of thing, and that they would not be touched or harmed
in any way by anybody. A friend of mine who was in the Nation of Islam that I
recognized even though he had on a mask gave instructions for all the women to
be let out of the buildings and escorted up to the front entrance gate where they
could be let off the compound. A few staff guards however, were kept temporary
hostage in the unit because they were considered to be Uncle-Toms or had been
assholes in their everyday interaction with the inmates. Mostly everyone was
just running around breaking windows and smashing stuff, but some idiot had
prematurely set my unit on fire while we were still locked in our cells, and the
smoke had started to thicken and come into the cells from under the doors. Men
started panicking and banging on their cell doors and yelling at the top of their
lungs for somebody to find a staff member with a door key. Right when the fire
was getting really bad and on the brink of engulfing the whole building, my
unit manager, who was usually an entire asshole to inmates out of sheer meanness,
was caught by some inmates out on the yard trying to make it to the entrance
gate and hurriedly brought back to my unit. He had the keys to all the cell
doors in the unit, and when I saw 3 or 4 men march him through the building’s
front entrance jacked up by the seat of his pants and the nape of his neck, I
laughed aloud. Before that day, he would never miss an opportunity to treat an
inmate like crap and work you like a dog and be quick to lock you up in isolation.
Now he was sniveling and sniffling like the little weak coward that he really was,
apologizing for the things he had done and begging not to be hurt. I heard the
masked men instruct him to open all the doors, which he gladly did, and after
we were let out of our cells and everyone had waded through the thick black
smoke and made it out of the building, men just started rampaging and
commenced to setting afire all the other buildings on the compound. Some men
were trying to break into the vaulted records offices to look at the files and see
who the snitches were, and some were trying to get media contact over the
phone to alert them to what was going on and why. The Emergency Response
Teams and SWAT teams had gotten the prison surrounded by now, and were all
over the rooftops of the Unicor and front entrance buildings with high powered
rifles and machine guns with tripods on them. They also had camcorders running
and were taping everything that was happening on the outside. They repeatedly
yelled over the megaphone that if anyone approached either of those buildings
they would instantly be shot down. (Those were the only 2 buildings that they
went out of their way to protect because you could escape from the front entrance
building and the Unicor factories are the money makers for the Bureau of Prisons.
The Unicor building was already pretty demolished on the inside anyway.) After
most of the other buildings had been burned down, men were running around
drinking hooch and smoking dope and throwing finger signs at the SWAT men
looking down on them from the rooftops. Those who were found out to be
snitches were beaten up so bad that they had to be rescued off of the compound
by the police. It was a state of total chaos and destruction that went on for an
entire day and then, just as fast as it had begun, it was over. When the Bureau
officials found out that there were 4 or 5 more prisons across the nation doing
the same thing for the same reasons, they feared that it would get out of hand
and all the federal jails might get encouraged to riot if it was allowed to go on
too much longer. They didn’t want the national media to get wind of the
simultaneous prison uprisings and report on what was happening either. At that
point, they decided to take the prison back and squash the rebellion by any
means necessary, and announced over the loudspeakers that whoever didn’t
surrender themselves by that next morning would be taken down by lethal
force. After a full day of action, nightfall began to settle and everybody said that
they felt that the job was done and the point was made, so everyone agreed to
surrender all at the same time. We were told to report to the gymnasium, which
was one of the only unburned buildings, and to wait until the morning came.
The next day, after all 1,000-plus inmates had turned themselves in and
were handcuffed and shackled and the administration had re-established control
over the prison, they went out of their way to humiliate us and seek revenge.
They stripped us naked, smacked us around, beat us up, and snatched off our
necklaces and wedding bands and put them in their pockets. Some of the men
that had threatened or physically assaulted officers and staff members during
the riot were taken into isolated areas and beaten to a pulp. Then they marched
us all out to about 20 waiting buses and kept us on those buses for 2 consecutive
days, where we were not allowed to talk or even get up to go to the bathroom.
Men were forced to urinate and defecate in their seats. They fed us only 4
bologna sandwiches each over the course of those 2 days, then the buses suddenly
took off heading in different directions, some as far out as the West Coast. The
bus I was on went to a prison facility in Milan, Michigan, where upon our
arrival we were again sporadically assaulted and punished. We were made to
kneel down bare-kneed on rough concrete and make our foreheads touch the
ground, all while handcuffed and shackled. Under threat of a beating, we were
made to maintain that position for several hours and then finally put into locked
down cells, where we stayed for 3 to 4 months. Prisoners that had rioted in
other prisons from all over the country were arriving there also, and we all were
interrogated and interviewed. After they had reviewed tapes and obtained
statements from the snitches about who did what, they charged and prosecuted
those who they could make out on the tapes burning the buildings or hitting
guards. There were very few charged because most of the men that had done the
real dirty work had been wearing masks and couldn’t be identified. When that
process was complete, the ones who they had not been able to prove participated
in the riots were sent either back to the prison they came from or to another
prison elsewhere. I was sent back to FCI Memphis. When we arrived, we were
put to work cleaning up and rebuilding those parts of the prison that were
destroyed or damaged. I ended up staying there at that prison for another year
and a half, and then was transferred to another prison.
After those uprisings, the way that federal prisons were run became even
stricter than they already were. Psychological deterrents were put into place to
make sure that insurrections of that magnitude would in the future be harder
to initiate and carry out. Prior to the riots, federal prisons were classified and
differentiated by 5 security levels: Super Maximum Security, High Security,
Medium Security, Low Security, and Minimum Security. Inmates would be
screened and separated by the nature of their crime and by the amount of time
that they had to serve. For example, if you had a 3 year sentence for a nonviolent
crime such as money laundering or possession of counterfeit money,
you would be sent to a prison camp, which is minimum security. On the
other hand, if you had a long violent criminal history or you had a murder
conviction or was convicted of having a “large” amount of crack cocaine (which
for some reason is also considered to be a violent crime) and you had a long
stretch of time to do, you would more than likely be sent to a penitentiary,
which is high security. The point of this was to have everyone with like
circumstances in their crimes and sentences housed together and not have
men with 3 or 4 years to do or men with non-violent crimes in the same prison
with men who had life sentences and violent crimes. Since the riots, they have
determined that it would be better to have men with small time and nonviolent
offenses housed directly with the men with big time and violent offenses.
Their logic is that it would be much harder for the inmates to form a large
enough consensus and galvanize for the purpose of rioting or demonstrating
under those circumstances because the ones who are going home soon would
probably discourage or at least not participate in such an activity since they
would have too much to lose and nothing to gain, vs. the long timers who had
very little or nothing to lose. All of the prisons that demonstrated in the ’95
riots were medium or high security institutions, but now security
determinations have no real effective purpose, even though those security labels
(high, medium, low, etc.) are still used for specific prison descriptions. Serial
killers are now doing time in the same prisons and even in the same cells as
someone who maybe just got caught with counterfeit money. Despite the
obvious danger that these new procedures place the short sentence, non-violent
inmates in by having them in such close proximity with inmates who are never
going home and who are doing their time by a different standard, they were
implemented, and so far have worked. There has not been any more group
demonstrations of that sort since, even though Congress has continued to
refuse to change the Crack vs. Powder law and the other bad laws, and the way
prisoners are being treated is steadily getting worse and young Black men are
filling up these new prisons at an alarming pace and are increasingly serving
longer, harder sentences. Because of the lack of public awareness about the
events of October ’95 and the lack of follow-up support by the prison
populations all over the nation, the riots only served to make doing federal
prison time even harder and did not result in any positive changes in the
sentencing laws whatsoever. Yet and still, I do not for 1 minute regret that the
riots happened but only that they were not continued until Congress did the
right thing or until there were no more prisons in which to keep us. I wish
that the protest could have been sustained to at least the point where people
in society, particularly Black people, could get the gist of the magnitude of
what is taking place within the criminal justice system and thus keep some
attention on the matter. Those serving time in prison are obviously aware and
are still at the boiling point of anger, but have no real platform from which to
address it. Charles Colson, the famous Prison Fellowship chairman who went
to prison in the 70’s for his role in President Nixon’s Watergate scandal, says
that since he started the Christian organization he has visited 600 prisons
across the nation doing his ministry and that he has observed that Black male
inmates harbor intense anger over sentencing disparities and injustices within
the criminal justice system. He characterized this anger as “legitimate” but he
warned the U.S. government in a report issued after the September 11th tragedy
that this pool of Black angry prisoners could become a ripe recruiting ground
for radical Islamic terrorists and could present a formidable danger to America’s
interests when they get released back into society. That observation by Colson
demonstrates how bad this dilemma of Black male mistreatment and overincarceration
by the criminal justice system has become, and to date there are
no signs of corrective relief coming any time soon.
When I was released from prison on May 7, 2001, it was the happiest, most
memorable day of my life. Not only mine; my family said that it was the day
they had been waiting on with great anticipation since the very first day I was
put in prison. After 8 years and 10 months, I was finally free. I was released from
the Federal Correctional Institution in Beckley, West Virginia at 7 o’clock in the
morning. My last night in prison had been spent in solitary confinement because
I had gotten into an argument with an officer and I didn’t bite my tongue this
time since I was going home the next day. The officers had taken me outside in
the blistering cold and snow and stood me out there handcuffed with no shirt
on for about 30 minutes while they looked on the computer in the lieutenant’s
office to see if I had any good time credits left that they could take away from
me. When they saw I didn’t have any and that there was nothing they could do
to stop me from going home the next day, they threw me in the hole for the
night. They kept me handcuffed for the first 3 hours I was in the cell and took
the mattress and blanket out of it so that I would have to sleep on the naked
steel-bottomed bed frame or the floor. Nevertheless, I went home the next
morning, but when I went to Discharge to get processed out and get my things,
I found that all of the old letters, pictures and other property that I had compiled
and wanted to take home with me had been vindictively thrown away by the
officers. Just as I was leaving out through the gates, one of the guards told me
that I would probably be back within a few months and that I would have to see
them again one day. We jabber-jawed at each other for a minute and I got the
best of him and he actually had to be physically restrained by his fellow officers.
One of them put his hand over his mouth just as he was getting ready to call me
a “Black ass nigger”; he was only able to get “Black ass nig . . .” out before his
mouth was covered.
My mother and my girlfriend picked me up at the front entrance area outside
of the prison and we drove for 10 hours all the way from Beckley to Memphis,
Tennessee. We stopped along the way for something to eat, and I had my first
meal as a free man at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. The first thing I did when we
got to Memphis was go to the newly built shopping mall and pick up a few
clothing items, and then I went straight to see my maternal and paternal
grandmothers. I went to my maternal grandmother’s first, then over to my father’s
mother’s house. Over at my father’s mother’s home, I was immediately confronted
with the state of things in the New Millennium. I remembered my grandmother
as being a very stately and very together woman that demanded respect from
everyone, especially her grandchildren. She had always driven a new Cadillac,
wore expensive jewelry, and kept her home immaculate. My first cousin Dorian,
who is my double cousin since our fathers are brothers and our mothers are
sisters, was still living with her. She had raised him and given him everything he
needed and desired growing up and had shielded him from most of the negative
stuff that my brothers and I were exposed to when we were all kids. When I got
over to her house, I saw the total and complete opposite of how things used to
be at her house in the past. My grandmother’s health was failing; over the years
she’d had many complications from her diabetes. She had a glass eye, and one of
her feet had been partially amputated. She could no longer work and just could
walk without assistance. Her home was in complete shambles, with roaches and
rats running rampant and the paneling coming off of the walls and no air
conditioning. Her Cadillac was up on concrete blocks and her front and back
yards were unkept and full of weeds. I was in complete shock by all of this, and
I hadn’t quite gotten over it all when my cousin and my brothers all pulled up.
My grandmother had called them and told them I was over there and they’d
rushed over. As they came into the house, I looked at them closely and I hardly
recognized these young men standing before me. They all had grown up to be
drug dealers and gang bangers and they all looked older than their years. They
had hardened, piercing looks in their eyes and just looked stressed out. Now I’m
sitting there in utter amazement of what I’m seeing, with thick weed smoke
pilfering through the air, marveling at how those little kids that I left in 1992
had turned into these men that I was looking at now.
Contrary to how my grandmother had tried to raise him, my cousin by this
time had been kicked out of all Memphis City Schools, kicked out of Job Corps.,
been shot twice, and had been to jail 5 or 6 times. He exemplified very little care
for himself and was preoccupied with why his mother, my aunt, did not want
him when he was a baby and had given him to our grandmother to rear. His
father, my uncle, had been killed when Dorian was 11 years old so he had barely
even known him. Now Dorian had just resigned himself to gangbanging and
selling and using crack cocaine, marijuana, and pills of all sorts. (As I’m writing
this book, Dorian is locked up facing 15 years in prison.) As I’m sitting there
pondering and trying to register all of what I am seeing here, I hear Dorian
swearing and grumbling in the kitchen about something. I go in there, and he’s
at the stovetop rocking up an ounce of cocaine. The cocaine isn’t formulating
right and he is trying to figure out what is the matter with it. I hear my beloved
grandmother, the one who I could not imagine anything but good and proper
things about when I was younger, tell him to “put some cold water on it.” It
really struck me then how far things had regressed since I had been gone. Here
was my grandmother giving my cousin advice, proper advice, on how to rock up
his cocaine. Things had gotten that bad, that desperate, and I eventually saw
that it had gotten that way with quite a few of the people that I’d known before
going to prison. It was like everyone in my old neighborhood and everyone in
my area was doing badly; either working dead end jobs, unemployed, or doing
illegal activity. Most of the people that I had known from my mother’s old
projects were still living there, and their children had gotten grown and were
still there also, sometimes living in the apartment next door to their parents. A
lot of people that I grew up with had died from Aids and violence. Almost 10
years had passed and everybody was either in the exact same economic and
mental state that they were in before I left or was in a worse state than they were
in then. Crack cocaine was still as ever-present as it was in ’92, and there were
just as many users if not more, only now most of them were young people.
Gangs had totally taken over the streets of Memphis. Old factories and plants
that used to employ big numbers of people in the city had either gone out of
business or had restructured and moved out. The young drug dealers had not
learned a thing over the years; they were still conspicuously riding around in
their drug dealer-looking cars and wearing their drug dealer-looking jewelry, the
same stupid highly noticeable stuff that had caused so many drug dealers before
them to be caught. It was just an overall sad and stagnant state of affairs.
I personally was blessed to be released into a better than average situation
than for most young Black men getting out of prison, being that my family was
in a better economic position than most incarcerated Black men families are in.
My mother and stepfather had long since gotten themselves together, moved
out of the projects, and was now making a high middle-class living as selfemployed
entrepreneurs. They weren’t filthy rich by any means, but they were
fairly well off. They bought me clothes, helped me get transportation and a
place to stay, and gave me a job working in the family business. The first day
home, my girlfriend and I conceived a child, and we made plans to get married
and be a family. I worked everyday, made plans to start my own company, and
went out on the town and enjoyed my freedom. I met a lot of new people and
made some new friends and met some good potential business contacts. I finally
was seeing the world that I had dreamed and fantasized about for nearly a whole
decade up close and personal, and I felt that my chances of making something of
myself were good despite my ex-felon status.
One day, about 6 weeks after I’d been out, I received a call from an old
childhood acquaintance from my father’s neighborhood named George. I hadn’t
seen George since I had been out and we weren’t ever really that close of friends
to begin with, but when he called and asked me to come and kick it with him I
didn’t have any problem with it. It was normal; all of my old acquaintances
wanted to kick it with me being that they hadn’t seen me in nearly 10 years. I
went and scooped him up and he and I rode around and talked about all the
things that had happened in the neighborhood and in the city since I’d been
gone, and he showed me some of the new clubs and hot spots that had been
built since I left. He also told me that he wasn’t doing too well financially, that
he made about $100 a week cleaning out horse stalls in a local horse barn where
his mother kept her horses, and that he was still living with his mother at 27
years old. He didn’t have a car, and his mother was paying his child support for
him. I kind of felt sorry for him but I was not in any position to help him out
being that I was fresh out of prison and was trying to get myself together still. I
dropped him off at his mother’s house after we had been together a couple of
hours and went on my merry way. A few weeks later, I received another call from
George at about 7 o’clock in the morning asking me to please come and pick
him up at the horse barn and take him over to his father’s house in East Memphis,
which was out by where I was living. My motor had blown in my own car the
day before, and I was temporarily driving a friend’s car. When he called me, I
had just dropped my friend off at work and was headed over to my maternal
grandmother’s house to see her and to pick up my briefcase that I had left over
there with all my work related paperwork in it. George said that he really needed
to go over to his father’s house to get something, and that he also needed to talk
with me about something important. He made it sound urgent that I pick him
up as soon as possible, so I promised him that I would be heading his way as
soon as I picked up my briefcase. I made it to my grandmother’s house, picked
up my paperwork, and told her that I would be coming right back, but that I
had to make a quick run somewhere. I left, found the barn where he worked,
and picked him up.
After giving me directions to where his father’s house was, George started
telling me about this girl that he knew named Renita that made and sold
counterfeit money. He said that she had just recently told him that she had
some now, and that he wanted to go and see it to see how it looked and maybe
get some of it from her. He wanted me to take him to meet her after we came
from his father’s house. I told him that I didn’t want anything to do with any
counterfeit money, and advised him not to mess with it either because dealing
with counterfeit money was a federal crime. I knew that because I had just
gotten out of federal prison and had known many people who had been caught
with fake money. When I said that, he probably could tell how serious I was, so
he promised me he wouldn’t do anything with any counterfeit money with this
girl. He then told me that this Renita also had a friend who sold clothes and
shoes, and that she sold them for much cheaper than store prices. He asked if I
wanted to see some of it. Since I had only been out of prison for 2 months, I still
needed some more clothes and shoes for my wardrobe so I told him that I would
be interested in seeing some of the stuff this woman had. He didn’t say whether
this woman was a booster or if she was one of those street hustlers who go up
north and buy large bulks of clothing cheap and bring it down south to sell at a
higher price. He just said that she was a friend of Renita’s. He told me he would
call Renita and let her know that he had someone interested in seeing some of
her friend’s merchandise. I told him to let me talk to her when he called. After
we left from his father’s house, I stopped by my place and ran in for a minute
and when I came back out to the car George was on the phone with Renita. He
hung up, and then told me that she was going to call back with her friend on the
phone. Renita had told George that the girl with the clothes didn’t trust her
with the merchandise, so she was going to call him back with her friend listening
in so that she could hear for herself that someone was actually trying to buy
some of her goods. George told me that Renita said that I should talk on the
phone as if I was going to purchase all of the clothes in bulk so that the girl
would give her all of the stuff to show us instead of just some of it. When Renita
called back, he handed me the phone. I talked to her for about 1 minute, during
which time she told me where to meet her and said a few other things that I
interpreted as the scheme to convince the girl listening in that I was going to
buy her stuff. I didn’t hear the female who supposedly had the merchandise say
anything, but George had told me that she would just be listening in. I asked
Renita if this stuff was illegal or if she had anything to do with the police and
she said no. She told me to bring George and meet her at a Sam’s Club store
parking lot and told me that she would be in a new white Lexus truck. She asked
me what kind of car we would be in and I told her that we were in a green
Mazda 626. Right before I finished talking with her, George told me to ask her
if she was just getting “15”, to which she replied yes. George then took back the
phone, said a few more things to Renita, and then hung up. I asked him what he
had told her we wanted and he said he told her we wanted to see some jogging
suits and sneakers. I asked him if he planned on buying anything himself and he
said no; that he just wanted to see what she had. I then asked him why he had
told me to ask her if she was getting 15 if he wasn’t buying anything. He said
that Renita’s friend who was supposed to be listening was under the impression
that the buyers, us, would be taking all of her merchandise off her hands and
that we would give her $1,500 for it, but that Renita had only told her that so
that she could get the stuff from her. (Looking back, all of the complexity involved
with the situation, a situation that really should have been very simple, should
have indicated to me that something wasn’t right.) I got directions from George
to where the Sam’s Club was and after we found it we pulled onto the parking
lot and immediately spotted the white Lexus truck sitting in the middle of the
lot. I pulled beside the truck and I saw a light-skinned Black female sitting in
the driver’s seat. We made eye contact and she beckoned for me to come to her.
When I opened the door and stepped out of the car, George hurriedly got out of
the passenger side and told me to get back in the car and pop the trunk. I sat
back down in the driver’s seat and reached down and pulled the lever to pop the
trunk. I figured that maybe he was going to put the clothes in the trunk and
then we would go somewhere other than in the middle of this parking lot to
look at it. I saw George go to her window and talk with her for about 15 seconds,
then go to the back of the truck and come out with a big brown paper bag. He
walked toward the trunk of the Mazda with it. I’m sitting there and as I look
forward I see a white Cadillac Escalade with completely tinted out windows and
big 20-inch chrome wheels slowly pull in front of my car, horizontally blocking
my path. A thought flashed across my mind that this may be a robbery or
something, but when the Cadillac’s window rolled down and I saw a White guy
with a Secret Service hat on pointing a pistol at me, I knew exactly what it was.
I started hearing tires screeching, motors revving, and voices yelling. My door
was violently yanked open by someone I didn’t even see and I was forcefully
snatched out of the car and slammed on the ground. I heard voices screaming
“Get the bitch, get that bitch! We’ve been wanting her a long time!”, and I
looked up and saw some officers grab Renita and pull her out of her truck and
put her in another car. I saw George on the ground about 30 or 40 yards from
the car; he had tried to run when the police jumped out on him, but they
caught him. They pulled me up off the ground and stood me next to the trunk
of the Mazda and pointed to the brown paper bag that was sitting in it. The
head agent informed me that this was a sting operation involving counterfeit
money. The brown bag was stapled shut, but one of the Secret Service men went
over and pulled the bag open and started snapping pictures of the stacks of
counterfeit bills that were in it. There were now at least a dozen Secret Service
agents out there on the scene, all with body armor and automatic assault rifles
that looked like guns you would use in a full scale military war. The way the
agents were manipulating the bag of counterfeit money by opening it and taking
dozens of pictures of the open bag looked like they were trying to make it seem
as if the bag was put into the trunk already opened; as if everyone involved had
clearly seen what was in it. The head agent came up to me, pointed at the
money, and said that I was under arrest for conspiracy to possess and purchase
$200,000 worth of counterfeit money and that I was facing 15 years in prison.
After I told him that I didn’t know anything about that counterfeit money, he
read me my rights and then threw me in the car alongside George. They took us
both downtown to the Secret Service office to be interrogated.
When we arrived at their office, they photographed and fingerprinted us
then they put us into separate rooms. They fingerprinted George first, and while
they were doing me I heard the officers in the interrogation room screaming at
George and George screaming back at them. They took me into another room
and left me in there alone for about 30 minutes while they continued to interrogate
George, then a Black agent came into my room and told me that they knew I
didn’t have anything to do with the counterfeit money and that they were only
after George and Renita. He said that George had given a written statement in
the other room detailing what had happened and my not knowing about what
he was doing. However, he wanted me to make a statement against George
saying that he was actually going to purchase the $200,000 in counterfeit with
$30,000 in real money even though no buy money was found at the scene or on
George’s person. I told him I knew of no such intent by George and that George
in fact didn’t have that kind of money, and therefore I could not make such a
statement. How in the world could I make such a statement, even if I wanted to,
if I didn’t know what George was doing in the first place? They wanted me to
tell a lie for them, which would not only be used against George, but in effect,
would also be an inadvertent admission of guilt on my part. If I had made such
a statement it would have shown that I at least had knowledge of what George’s
plans were and took him to Sam’s to meet Renita still, which in itself is a crime
punishable by the same amount of time in prison as if I had actually committed
the crime myself. (I didn’t find this out till later on in the process after I researched
my situation and the laws involved in it, but I guarantee you those agents knew
it at the time they were trying to get me to make that statement.) After the
agent prodded and prodded and I continuously refused to say what he wanted
me to say, he got up and left the room. A short time later, the head agent came
in. He placed a file and a tape recorder on the table. He began telling me in no
uncertain terms that he could and would be able to make a case against me and
send me to prison right along with George if I did not cooperate with them in
convicting George and in working for them on the streets to catch other people
up with counterfeit money. He told me that he had run a computer check on
me and had seen that I had just gotten out of federal prison 60 days ago and was
on 5 years probation, and if I didn’t do as they say he was going to get on the
phone and call my probation officer and get me violated, then turn me over to
the Federal Prosecutors Office for indictment and prosecution. He said he had
me on tape talking about counterfeit money. When I told him he was either
mistaken or lying, he pressed play on the little recorder. I listened to 2
conversations between George and Renita talking about counterfeit money, and
then the brief conversation between me and Renita that we had earlier when I
was talking on George’s phone in the car. Even though that conversation was
clearly not about counterfeit money and was only about 1 minute long, he said
it was ambiguous enough that a jury could be convinced that I knew something
about what was going on. I told him once again that I had absolutely no knowledge
of what George and Renita were planning to do, and I told him that George had
mentioned counterfeit money to me but that I had told him not to mess with
that and he had told me that he wouldn’t. I explained to him what George had
said about the clothes and the people who were supposed to have the clothes
and that that’s what I was talking to Renita about on the phone. I still refused to
work for him, so he packed up his stuff, told me I was going back to prison
regardless, and left the room. Soon afterwards, they took me from that room and
put me in an SUV where I once again saw George. As soon as George saw me, he
started telling me how the officers were trying to get him to lie on me and say
that I knew about what he was doing. He told me that he had told them the
truth but they didn’t want to hear it. I cursed him out and asked him why he
lied to me about what he was doing. He said that he knew I wouldn’t have taken
him to meet Renita after I told him that counterfeiting was a federal crime and
that he shouldn’t mess with it, so he came up with that clothing story. He said
he had written out a sworn statement explaining how everything had happened
and admitting to what he had done. He promised he would get me out of the
situation as soon as he could explain to a judge or an attorney what had happened
and how he had gotten me involved.
We were detained in a private holding facility overnight, and when we had
our bond hearing the next day George was given a $10,000 bond and I was
denied bond because of an offhand statement I had made to one of the Secret
Service officers that I “would rather die than go back to prison”; a statement
I’d made to him when I was telling him that I would not dare commit a crime
such as dealing with counterfeit money because I didn’t want to go back to
prison. The agent manipulatively took that statement out of context and
portrayed it like I was an escape risk and used it to get the judge to deny me a
bond on that premise and to try to put pressure on me to work for them. It’s
ironic that they were painting me out to be an escape risk and George had
actually tried to run and get away at the scene of the arrest but yet wasn’t
considered to be an escape risk. It’s also ironic that George did not have the
$1,000 needed for him to make bond and had to stay locked up too, though
he was allegedly going to somehow provide $30,000 in this counterfeit deal.
The whole ordeal was based on lies by the agents and the informant. The
Secret Service agent had also lied purposefully when he said on the scene of
the arrest that I was facing a 15 year sentence. The sentencing guidelines for
$200,000 worth of counterfeit money was 18 months on a guilty plea and 2
years if a trial commenced and a guilty verdict was rendered. I found this out
once I got locked up. Before I found this out, I really thought that I was
possibly going to get a 15 year sentence, and for the first 3 days I was locked
up after my bond was denied I was physically sick. I didn’t eat and I didn’t get
out of bed. I didn’t take showers and I didn’t call my family. For the first time
in my life, I seriously considered suicide. All my life I had never thought I
could get so emotionally low to the point where I would seriously think about
taking my own life and I never understood how it was that other people could
kill themselves, but at that point I knew exactly how they felt. It was only after
another guy in my cellblock who was also locked up for counterfeit money
heard about me and what my charge was came to me and told me that there
was no way I would get 15 years for counterfeit money that I came out of my
funk. He showed me in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual how much
time I was actually looking at, and that lifted my spirits a great deal although
I still was very distraught because I was back in jail after only 60 days of being
free. I had hired a prominent local trial lawyer to represent me in the case and
had given him $2,000 to come to my first preliminary hearing, which was the
bond hearing. At that hearing, he came off with an uppity attitude and told
me that he couldn’t make me any promises and that he would charge $25,000
to be my attorney if I went to trial, most of which he wanted up front. Of
course I couldn’t afford that and plus he had failed to get me a bond, so I
ended up having to get a public defender. George’s mother had a friend who
was an attorney and she had hired her to represent him. Both of our attorney
tried to persuade us to plea-bargain, which George eventually did, but I refused.
Our indictment had 2 counts: Count 1 was for conspiracy between George
and me to purchase $200,000 in counterfeit money for $30,000. The second
count was for knowingly possessing the counterfeit money. George plead guilty
a few months after our bond hearing, and at his plea hearing he told the
judge, who was Judge Bernice Donald, the only Black federal judge in Memphis,
that he was not pleading guilty to the conspiracy charge on the indictment
because it falsely implicated me in conspiring with him to buy the counterfeit.
He told her he would only plead guilty to the second count of possession. He
explained to the judge what he had tried to explain to the Secret Service agents
when we were first arrested and had been explaining to me the whole time
that we were in the detention center together; that he in fact had known of the
counterfeit money, had sought to possess it but not buy it, and that he was
acting along with a scheme initiated and proposed to him by the confidential
informant Renita. He admitted that he had in fact lied to me as to why he
wanted me to take him to see Renita. He brought to the judge’s attention as
he had brought to mine that Renita had told him that day before we were
apprehended that she had access to $200,000 in counterfeit money and that
her friend, who prints the money on her computer and actually has it, would
put it in her hands only if she told her that she had someone who would buy
it. She (Renita) told George that if she got the fake money from her friend that
she would split it 50/50 with him and that they would tell her friend that the
so-called buyer had robbed them of the money, but that George would have
to help her convince her friend that someone was going to actually buy it first.
It was an elaborate scheme that she concocted to get him to have incriminating
conversations on the phone with the police listening in and recording them,
unbeknownst to him, about him buying the fake money for himself and a
friend of his for the price of $30,000. Renita along with several other people
had been arrested and charged with conspiracy of manufacturing counterfeit
money a month or so before all of this happened. She had been making and
selling counterfeit money for years and she drove luxury cars and wore expensive
jewelry, all acquired with profits from her illegal activities. Because she had
children and did not want to go to prison, she made an agreement to testify
against all of her co-defendants in the conspiracy case and to work for the
Secret Service on the streets. In exchange, she would do no jail time and would
be allowed to keep all of the possessions she had acquired from selling counterfeit
over the years. Her whole intent in bringing this scheme to George was to get
him on tape talking about purchasing the counterfeit, then tell him to come
pick it up whereby he would be arrested as soon as he touched the bag it was
in, which makes it an airtight case and an easy conviction for the prosecutor
and puts another notch on the belt of the head Secret Service agent. The only
problem for George was that he didn’t have a car and he needed someone to
drive him to where he had to meet her to pick up the counterfeit. That is why
he called me. Initially he had wanted to put me in on it, but when I told him
that I didn’t want any part of dealing with any counterfeit and that it was a
federal crime to have fake money, he told me he wouldn’t mess with it and
concocted that story about the clothes in order to get me to take him to meet
her. The story he told me was the same story she had told him, but he just
substituted counterfeit money with clothes.
When George told all of this to Judge Donald, she accepted his plea of
guilty to possession of counterfeit obligations and dropped his count of conspiracy.
My goal was to have both of my counts dropped, but the prosecutor refused to
do that. He offered me an 18 month sentence on a guilty plea, which I refused.
George had already made statements in my favor on the record and had expressed
to me his willingness to testify on my behalf in a trial in order to set me free, so
I went ahead and opted to go to trial. I felt that if George got on the stand and
told the truth there was no way that a jury would convict me of this crime. This
would be my second trial in federal court and I didn’t plan on losing this one
like I had lost the first one.
We had discovered through street buzz that Renita had been attempting to
use the same scheme she used on George on other people in and around George’s
neighborhood even before she had approached him with it, and we had obtained
the addresses and phone numbers of different people she had approached with
it. I told my attorney that I wanted her to contact these men and if necessary
subpoena them to come to court and testify about what Renita had tried to get
them to do. This was very important, because Renita had told the prosecutor
that George had approached her wanting to buy $200,000 in counterfeit money;
that everything was initiated by him and was his idea in the first place. Regardless
of her telling them that, I know that the Secret Service officers and the prosecutor
had to eventually know that this couldn’t be true. George couldn’t even make
the $1,000 deposit needed to get himself out of prison on bail! It would take a
person of extreme naiveté to believe that it was just coincidence or extremely
good luck on Renita’s part that she was in desperate need to supply the police
with victims so that she could stay free and not have to go to prison when Bam!!!
A man who doesn’t even have a car and lives with his mother approaches her and
asks to buy $200,000 in counterfeit money for $30,000 real cash. I just knew
that a jury would see through that in a trial. For her to approach people and seek
to entrap them in such a way is illegal and would cause the case to be thrown
out. Since the agents and the prosecutor didn’t want that to happen, they went
along with her version of who approached who, and probably even told her how
to say it.
After I made my intention to go to trial known, they switched my judge
from Judge Donald to the same judge I had on my first trial 9 years prior; Judge
Julia Gibbons. She is an ultra-conservative pro-prosecutor judge who is married
to the state district attorney of Memphis. I knew that she would be staunchly
against me, especially since this was my second time in front of her, but I never
expected what was to come.
My trial commenced on October 1, 2001 after being delayed a couple of
times by my attorney for what I thought were investigative reasons. I thought
that she and her investigator had subpoenaed the people who could come testify
about Renita approaching them with the same scheme she had approached
George with, but my attorney hadn’t even bothered to issue any subpoenas.
When I found out and asked her about it, she said that we didn’t need those
people to testify; that all we needed to win was George’s testimony. George had
written her a statement and sent it to her in the mail detailing his wish to be
called as a witness on my behalf and what he would testify to. He also sent a
similar letter to his own attorney letting her know his intentions. The prosecution
already had his statement that he’d made when we were first arrested which said
that I didn’t know what he was doing because he had lied to me and that I’d told
him not to mess with any counterfeit money when he had told me about it. The
prosecutor had included that statement in the discovery evidence (discovery
evidence is the evidence that the prosecution intends to use against the defendant
in trial) because at the time the prosecution submitted the discovery to the
court as evidence, it was unclear whether George would plead guilty or not, and
in case he didn’t, that statement in which he admits his own knowledge of the
counterfeit money could be used as evidence against him in trial. Once specific
discovery is declared and entered to the court and to the defense so that they
will have foreknowledge of what the prosecution plans on using and the ability
to map out a defense strategy against it, it is automatically entered into evidence
at the trial. In other words, it does not have to be approved again by the judge in
order to be entered and used as evidence in a trial. When George pled guilty, his
statement went from being a potential weapon against him to being an extreme
plus for me. All together there were 4 statements, including the verbal statement
George had made to Judge Donald during his plea hearing. George knew that
for him to go to trial would be useless because he had in actuality intended to
possess the counterfeit and had admitted that at the onset, but he knew that I
was innocent and he also wanted to expose the lies and entrapment tactics that
Renita had used to catch him up in the deal in the first place.
After we had picked the jury and were set to go, the prosecutor put on his
case first. He put Renita on the witness stand and she commenced to tell her
side of the story, which was a complete series of absolute lies. She testified that
George had seen her in a friend’s driveway the day before she set the bust up and
had approached her and asked her if she could sell him $200,000 in counterfeit
money for $30,000 real money. She then said she told him yes and immediately
contacted the Secret Service officer supervising her “work” and told him that
George had approached her with this proposition. She said she was then instructed
to meet again with George and talk more in-depth about the transaction with
the Secret Service agent listening in through a body wire. She then said she
subsequently talked to George again over the phone and that he told her that I,
Demico, was the one who would buy this money for me, him, and some other
person for $30,000, and that she talked directly to me over the phone about
this also. She claimed she was instructed by me and George to meet her at a
horse barn. She said George gave her directions to the barn and when she got
there, both he and I came out of the barn, got into her truck, and conversed
with her about us purchasing the fake money. She said that I allowed her to talk
to the other person on a cellular phone that was actually going to provide the
buy money. She went on to say that the conversation that she and I had that
next morning on George’s cell phone was concerning counterfeit money, not
anything else. She described how she was sitting in her truck wearing the wire
she had been outfitted with by the agents when we pulled up beside her in our
green Mazda 626. She said that I got out of the car, told her that we were
getting ready to take the counterfeit money over to the guy who was providing
the $30,000, and that we would call her later once we had made the transaction.
Then she said George got out of the car and asked where the money was, and
then went to the back of her truck and opened the door and retrieved the bag
containing the counterfeit. Finally, she acknowledged that she had been promised
a deal by the prosecutor in exchange for her testimony against me.
Scott King, the head case agent for the Secret Service, was the next prosecution
witness. He took the stand and said that Renita first contacted him on May 6,
2001, the day before the bust. He testified that she told him that a person by
the name of George had approached her and asked about purchasing $200,000
in counterfeit money. He said that she “later” told him that she had met both
George and me at a barn that same day. (He purposefully used the ambiguous
word “later” which could mean she told him that after the arrest or even at a
time way after that. It is so devious and crafty how these obviously deceptiontrained
government officials and officers play word games and semantics and lie
“legitimately” in court under oath.) However, upon cross-examination by my
attorney, he did admit that there was no one who was actually going to purchase
the counterfeit from Renita, but he said he believed that we were going to just
take it from her instead and pay her nothing. He had to admit there was no one
else involved because if he had said that someone else was involved, it would
have suggested that he didn’t do a good job with his investigation and arrest
tactics because he didn’t get the other persons Renita said were involved nor did
he know who they were.
After the agent’s testimony, the prosecution rested. The first witness we
called was George. George’s attorney, a Black woman, was visibly afraid of the
prosecutor and Judge Gibbons and tried everything she could to stop us from
calling George as a witness because she knew what they would do to him if he
testified for me. Everybody knew that Judge Gibbons was extremely proprosecutor
anyway, and that she didn’t want to see me go free. She had offhandedly
made comments and remarks that made that perfectly clear. Because of this,
George’s lawyer falsely told the judge, out of George’s presence, that George
didn’t have anything to say in my defense and wished to have his written
statements stand in lieu of any potential testimony we wished to extract from
him. She said that she felt that if he were put on the witness stand, the judge
would choose not to believe his testimony and would find him guilty of perjury.
The judge then essentially agreed with that assessment, saying that if George
got on the witness stand and testified in my favor that “It could potentially
create problems for him in terms of sentencing issues and whatnot.” This was
the first of several illegal veiled threats that she would give him in order to
prevent him from testifying because she knew that if he got on the stand and
told the truth that I would undoubtedly go free. George’s lawyer then went so
far as to suggest that George may actually lie on the stand in order to help me
and that because of that he shouldn’t be allowed to testify. His own lawyer did
this! After Judge Gibbons had made it crystal clear to everyone involved that she
didn’t want George to take the stand and testify in my defense, she had the
Marshals bring him out and put him on the stand to “find out whether he’s
going to claim his Fifth Amendment privilege” as the prosecutor had suggested
that he do once the judge had let her wishes be known. First she directed George
to talk to his attorney again so that she could thoroughly inform him of the
consequences that the judge would take out on him if he testified, and then the
following proceedings took place.
George, after having been first duly sworn, took the witness stand and testified
as follows:
The Court: I think this will proceed quicker if I can just question him. You are
Mr. Calvin Boothe, is that correct?
The Witness: Yes Ma’am.
The Court: And you’ve been brought in because Mr. Demico Boothe, your codefendant,
wishes to have you testify as a witness on his behalf. Do you
understand that?
The Witness: Yes ma’am.
The Court: Have you had an opportunity today to consult with your lawyer
about that?
The Witness: Yes ma’am.
The Court: And do you understand that it’s, if you testified, that Mr. Demico
Boothe’s lawyer would be seeking to ask you questions concerning the offenses
with which you are charged in this case, do you understand that?
The Witness: Yes ma’am.
The Court: And have you made a decision about whether you wish to testify in
this case?
The Witness: Yes ma’am.
The Court: Do you understand that you have the right to claim your Fifth
Amendment privilege in the case and refuse to testify on the basis that your
testimony might incriminate you? Do you understand that?
The Witness: Yes ma’am.
The Court: Do you understand that you could testify if that’s what you chose to
do?
The Witness: Yes ma’am.
The Court: What is your decision concerning this matter?
The Witness: I came to tell the truth. That’s all I can do.
Now here is where the law requires her to stop questioning him with regard
to his decision to testify. She had met the burden of what the law instructs and
requires a judge to meet when questioning a potential witness who desires to
testify in court; she had made sure that he had consulted with a lawyer and
knew his right to not testify. He had already been sworn in to “tell the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth” before ever taking the stand, and after
all of this had again expressed his desire to testify and do just that; “tell the
truth”. Judge Gibbons then unlawfully continued to question him further and
seek to scare him off the witness stand:
The Court: Well, do you understand that—do you understand that it is
probably not in your interest as your lawyer has advised you, to testify in
this case?
The Witness: Yes, I understand, Judge, but I know the person that set all this up
and set me up with this, sitting up here lying, doing all the lying, so it is not
going to be right to sit up here and let her lie about it.
The Court: Do you understand that if you testify falsely in this case that you
could be charged with perjury?
The Witness: Yes.
The Court: Do you understand that if you testify falsely that that could also
have an impact on your sentence in this case because you could receive
enhancement points for obstruction of justice? Did you understand that?
The Witness: No.
The Court: And furthermore, you could potentially lose any points you would
get for acceptance of responsibility in this case if you testify falsely, so you
would end up with a longer sentence perhaps, not only because of the
obstruction of justice enhancement, but also because of the denial of points
for acceptance of responsibility? So if you do not tell the truth here or if the
court determines that you’ve not told the truth, then your sentence could
be significantly longer that it would otherwise be. Do you understand that?
The Witness: Yes.
The Court: Given that understanding that you have now, what do you want to
do in terms of testifying?
The Witness: I’m going to testify.
The Court: Anybody have any other suggested questions we might ask?
The Prosecutor: No.
The Court to George’s attorney: Is there anything you want to cover with him?
George’s attorney: No, Your Honor.
The Court to George: Do you think that a further opportunity to consult with
your lawyer might be of assistance to you? Are you confident that this is the
decision you want to make or do you have any interest in talking to your
lawyer further? (While she is saying this she is glaring at him and emphasizing
her words.)
The Witness: Can I talk to her again.
The Court: You may talk to her again if you want to, yes.
Now, what Judge Gibbons has just told him in a veiled but clearly
understandable way is that if he should testify, she will first of all not believe his
testimony, second of all not allow him to receive his 2 point deduction for
pleading guilty and accepting responsibility for what he did, which would amount
to an additional 6 months tacked onto his already agreed upon 24 month
sentence, and third, charge him with perjury and obstruction of justice which
could give him an additional 2 years. So now, if he testifies he will get 4 ½ years
instead of 2. She suggested that he go back and talk to his lawyer yet again
because she wanted the lawyer to let him know exactly what risk he was taking
by trying to testify. She knew that his lawyer didn’t want him to testify anyway
and that she would strongly discourage him from doing it. Now keep in mind
that all of this is clearly and precedently forbidden by law. A judge cannot
discourage a potential witness from testifying in a case in any way because the
defendant has a constitutional right to present a defense in a trial. A judge can
only inform the witness of his or her rights, and cannot give their opinion as to
whether or not a witness should testify, let alone encourage a witness not to
testify. I’m sure that Judge Gibbons knew this but figured she had a defendant
in front of her who was dumb, poor, and Black, and represented by a public
defender who probably wouldn’t really make an issue out of what she was doing,
so therefore she could get away with it. I guarantee you that if I would have had
a highly paid renowned and enthusiastic attorney representing me, she wouldn’t
have dared do what she did.
After the marshal took George out of the courtroom to a back room to wait
to talk to his lawyer once more, his lawyer first went and huddled with the
prosecutor at his table. After a few minutes, she arose and asked to address the
judge in private. The following was said:
George’s attorney: Judge, may we approach the bench and talk to you privately
about something?
The Court: Sure.
George’s attorney: With I guess Mr. DiScenza. (The prosecutor)
The Court: I don’t want to talk to some of the lawyers. I’m happy to talk to all
of you.
George’s attorney: Judge, Mr. Boothe is at Mason. (The holding facility) He’s locked
up and he’s currently—Apparently there has been, I don’t want to call them
threats from Mr. Demico Boothe regarding the safety of Mr. Calvin Boothe,
and that’s why he’s afraid to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege at this time.
And I think he probably would if he was out of custody, if there was a bond in
this case. I don’t know, you know, how the court would like to deal with this
issue. I know that he would assert the privilege if he was out of custody. He has
indicated that—He didn’t say that Mr. Demico Boothe has actually threatened
him, but he’s afraid that if he doesn’t offer testimony that he would.
The Court: I don’t want to get involved in negotiating with Mr. Calvin Boothe
over a bond and, you know, based on his testimony. I will tell Mr. Calvin
Boothe, however, that the marshal and the Court can try to take steps to
assure his safety. I don’t know what Mr. DiScenza’s position is about a bond.
That’s just another issue, though. We can have him housed somewhere different
if he’s concerned about his safety, and you know, I’m not the final determiner
of where he’s housed, but I can certainly speak to the marshal about it.
Prosecutor: I’m a little confused now. He’s been threatened by Mr. Demico
Boothe, so he doesn’t want to testify, but if he is out on bond where he can
be threatened, that he would testify exculpating Demico Boothe?
The Court: He would claim his Fifth.
George’s attorney: Because he’s afraid—His words to me were “You don’t have
to go back there with that person”, that’s what he said to me.
George’s lawyer, in her desperation to find some way to keep George from
testifying, took something he had previously said to her out of context and tried
to get the court to let him out of jail in exchange for him keeping quiet. He
already had a $10,000 bond that would only take a thousand dollars to get him
out, but she knew he couldn’t post it and thought that if she could get the judge
to let him out with no money paid, that he might change his mind and decline
to testify. I’ve talked to George since this happened, and he told me that days
earlier when he had talked to his lawyer that she was telling him that Judge
Gibbons would crucify him if he took the stand on my behalf and that she as his
lawyer strongly recommended that he not testify. He said he told her that there
was no way that he could just sit there and watch me go to prison after only
being out for 60 days for something he had gotten me into. When she insisted
that he not worry about me but only about himself, he said he told her “You
don’t have to go back to that prison with him, I do. You don’t have to have it on
your conscience that you got somebody into something like this and didn’t do
everything in your power to get them out of it.” She took that statement and
purposefully mischaracterized it to try and get the judge to let him out in
exchange for him not testifying. That kind of move would have been going too
far and would have been too overtly prejudicial, and Judge Gibbons knew that if
she had exchanged releasing him for his silence that something like that would
get her in deep trouble if it was ever reviewed by a higher court. When Judge
Gibbons refused George’s attorney’s offer, his lawyer went and consulted with
him once again and let him know in no uncertain terms that he would be a fool
to testify for me because the judge was certainly going to at least double his
sentence if he did. George’s mother, who was a personal friend of his attorney,
also was there advising him not to testify because she didn’t want him to get
more time. With the judge, the prosecutor, his own lawyer, and his mother all
warning him not to testify, he finally relented. After about 20 minutes of his
lawyer running back and forth from George to his mother, she finally came out
and gave the thumbs up, signaling that she had successfully persuaded him to
take the Fifth and not testify. They brought him out and put him back on the
stand.
The Court: Okay, Mr. Boothe, you are still under oath. Have you had an
opportunity to talk to your lawyer further concerning this?
The Witness: (Nods head affirmatively)
The Court: What is your decision?
52 DEMICO BOOTHE
The Witness: I can’t risk my points being taken from me.
The Court: Okay. So it is your desire to exercise your Fifth Amendment privilege
not to testify in this case?
The Witness: Yeah.
The Court: Okay. All right. You can step down and we can excuse him.
When they took George out of that courtroom, they took my entire defense
with him. Without his testimony, there was no point in me even going to trial.
He was the only person who could tell the jury exactly what he and Renita had
done and how he had lied to me about what they were doing, which resulted in
me being arrested and charged right alongside him. He was the only one who
could tell them about Renita’s lies on the stand and how she had entrapped
him. My attorney had failed to subpoena the men in George’s neighborhood to
come testify that she had tried the same scheme with them before she approached
George with it, so I didn’t have any way to prove that the entire situation was
the brain-child of the informant in the first place. If I could have proved that, it
would have gone toward proving entrapment and would have gotten me an
acquittal and possibly brought about a reprimand of the Secret Service officers
for using such tactics. At that point, I was sitting there in the shirt and tie that
my step-father had brought to the federal courthouse feeling like a complete
fool for believing that justice would prevail this time and I would walk out of the
courtroom that day as a free man. I looked around at the pretty much empty
courtroom and saw George’s mother staring at me. I was really pissed with her
because she knew that I was in this predicament because of her son and still had
lobbied hard to get him not to testify and clear me. I knew that as a mother her
foremost concern was his well-being and him not getting more prison time, but
I was mad just the same. I gave her an angry look, and then she motioned for my
lawyer to come and speak with her. My attorney went over and spoke with her
and came back to our table and told me that George’s mother had asked her if
she could testify for me. She said that she herself had been at the barn that
evening on the day before we were arrested where Renita had said she met up
with me and George to discuss the deal for the following day. Renita had testified
that she had gotten directions to the barn from George, pulled up at the barn
and George and I had come out of the barn and gotten into her truck and talked
with her about how we were going to do the deal, and then I let her talk to
another person over the phone who was going to provide the money to buy the
counterfeit. George’s mother said she was there herself when Renita had pulled
up in her truck at the barn and George had gotten in by himself and that she in
fact had held a conversation with Renita on that occasion, and that, most
importantly, I was not there at the barn when this took place like Renita had
falsely testified earlier. She said that she wanted to at least let the jury know that
this part of Renita’s testimony was definitely a lie and that hopefully that will
give them enough reasonable doubt about Renita’s credibility. She said she herself
would testify because she didn’t want George to do it and be subjected to more
prison time. At that point I didn’t have any objections to her testifying, so my
lawyer informed the judge that we had 1 person who wanted to testify, and then
George’s mother took the stand. She told what had actually taken place at the
barn; that Renita had pulled up in her new Lexus truck and had asked for
George. She said that she and Renita then held a brief conversation until George
came out and got in the passenger seat of the truck. Renita and George sat there
talking in the truck for about 30 minutes, and then George got out of the truck
and she left. After George’s mother told her story and answered all of my lawyer’s
questions, when it was the prosecutor’s turn to cross-examine her, he declined.
He knew that she was telling the truth and that as a witness she was above
reproach and could not be discredited.
What we had come to find out is that the particular meeting between Renita
and George at the barn had been listened to and recorded by the Secret Service.
Renita had haphazardly mentioned it in her testimony, and the lead case agent
had said in an earlier preliminary evidence hearing that they had “attempted” to
listen in on a conversation that day between Renita and George and myself. My
attorney recalled the agent to the stand and questioned him as to the whereabouts
of that recording. He responded that he didn’t have it any longer because he
couldn’t hear what was being said on it so therefore had determined that it was
of no use. That was a total crock of bull, and it had to be obvious to everyone in
the courtroom. Since when do the police throw away evidence? The truth was
that he didn’t want to present it because it would show I was not a party to that
conversation, and therefore would discredit Renita’s whole story. My lawyer
then questioned him about the tapes from the body wire Renita had on when
we pulled up beside her on Sam’s parking lot. Renita had said in her testimony
that I had gotten out of the car and said some incriminating things to her about
purchasing the counterfeit, so that conversation should have been recorded on
tape as well. He didn’t have those either. He said he heard over that wire Renita
and George talking, not me, and implied that I didn’t get out of the car and
speak to her like she said I did in her testimony. He had no choice but to admit
this because if he had said that what Renita said was true, the obvious question
would have arisen: Why didn’t you keep the recordings from that wire? He had
to say he lost or destroyed them because if he had produced them the lie would
have been revealed. Either way he would have looked bad, so he chose to indirectly
admit that Renita had lied about that.
My prosecutor was one of the most experienced prosecuting attorneys in
Memphis, and he out-argued my public defender throughout the entire
proceeding. I knew by this time that I needed to testify in my own defense
despite the fact that the prosecutor would bring up that I was a convicted felon
already and had just recently been released from prison 60 days prior to getting
arrested on this charge. A prosecutor cannot bring up a defendant’s criminal
history in a trial unless that defendant takes the witness stand and testifies. At
that point he can cross-examine the defendant and drag his past through the
mud and make him look really bad to the jury. I knew that it might be extremely
bad for me, but I also knew that if I didn’t take that risk I was almost guaranteed
to get found guilty. I could tell by how things had already gone and by the
lackadaisical investigative legwork and courtroom performance by my lawyer. It
needed to be explained thoroughly exactly what had happened, and only me or
George could do that. Since Judge Gibbons wouldn’t let George testify for me, I
would have to do it myself. I took the stand, and my lawyer guided me step by
step through the events that led up to my arrest. When it was the prosecutor’s
turn to cross-examine me, the only thing he really focused on was the fact that I
had a previous felony and had served a 10 year sentence for selling cocaine, and
that I couldn’t even make it 2 months out in society without getting into trouble.
When I tried to explain to the jury that Renita, the informant, had come up
with this whole scheme and was seeking to entrap someone so that she could
stay out of jail herself, Judge Gibbons stopped me and prohibited me from
getting into that, citing that I didn’t have first-hand knowledge of what Renita
told George. But George did and she wouldn’t let him testify! George was the
only witness in the whole trial that Judge Gibbons threatened and prevented
from testifying. She didn’t do it to Renita, who obviously had every reason to lie.
The prosecutor’s cross-examination of me was really weak on the facts of the
case, and all in all I got the best of him argument-wise. I had truth on my side
and the ability to articulate it and fend off some of the verbal trickery he was
trying in order to make me look dishonest and criminal, but with the judge’s
constant biased interjections throughout the proceedings and with him
concentrating on my past record and prison term and him mischaracterizing
that 1 minute conversation between me and Renita on George’s phone, he was
able to convince the jury of my guilt. After about 3 hours of deliberation, they
returned a guilty verdict on both the conspiracy and the possession counts. I
was torn apart. My lawyer started telling me that we had a great appeal issue
because of the judge not allowing my key witness to testify. (That appeal would
later be denied for no clearly stated reason by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals
and also by the U.S. Supreme Court.) I wasn’t trying to hear that though. All I
knew was that I was going back to prison for some more years. I was sentenced 3
months later, and was supposed to be sentenced to between 24 and 30 months
for the counterfeit charges and between 4 and 10 months for the supervised
release violation. The sentence should have been run concurrent, meaning running
the smaller 4 to 10 month sentence in with the 24 to 30 month sentence for a
total sentence of anywhere between 24 to 30 months. Instead, Judge Gibbons
gave me an additional 2 point enhancement on my sentencing point guideline
for obstruction of justice because she said that she felt I lied on the stand. Really
she was giving it to me for taking the case to trial and not plea-bargaining,
which is a common practice for her whenever defendants in her courtroom opt
to go to trial and testify in their own defense. That 2 point enhancement put my
sentencing guideline at 34 to 40 months. She sentenced me to 36 months for
the conviction and 10 months for the supervised release violation and ran them
consecutive, making my total sentence 46 months. (Judge Gibbons has since
been promoted by President George W. Bush to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
She was actually on the 6th Circuit bench when they heard my appeal case and
denied it.)
I went back to the holding tank at the courthouse feeling that same feeling
I’d felt when I was first arrested and when the jury had come back with the
guilty verdict; like I had just been hit in the gut with a sledgehammer. All that
was running through my head was how in the world was I going to do another
almost 4 years right after I had done 9 years straight, and about my mother and
the rest of my family that had been waiting all that time to see me set free. I
thought about having to be around all of the ignorance and uncouthness that
comes with the territory with being in prison. I thought about those petrifying
cross-country “con-air” airplane trips on those old raggedy Bureau of Prisons
planes with duct tape on the wings and with pilots, several of whom in the past
I’ve seen visibly drunk while boarding the planes, who don’t have to be mindful
of the comfort of their passengers like regular commercial pilots do. They take
those planes straight up in the air and come straight down, the whole time
twisting and yanking them and making it feel like it’s getting ready to fall out of
the sky at any moment, while the 200 or so shackled, cuffed, and chained
prisoners sit there in utter terror. I dreaded having to look in the faces of those
same men that I did time with and left behind in prison and those same guards
that I had come to know while I was doing my last term and explain why I was
back so quickly. I thought about having to eat the sparse, horrible meals that are
served in prison. The foremost consideration on my mind about having to go
back to prison was the fact that I was getting ready to have a child and that the
baby would be born with its father absent. All of these things were weighing
heavily on my mind as they marched me out of the courtroom that day with a
fresh 46 month sentence to begin.
After 3 months of awaiting prison designation in the 20-man holding facility
that Judge Gibbons had the Marshals put me in during my trial, where everyone
else in there with me was facing either the death penalty, a life sentence, or a
gigantic amount of time, I was told that I would be returning to the same prison
that I’d gotten out from only 13 months earlier; The Federal Correctional
Institution of Beckley, West Virginia. Upon re-arrival at FCI Beckley, I got off of
the plane and was met by those same guards that I had gotten into the argument
with on the day I left last time. It was raining cats and dogs when I got off the
plane and the guards were out there in raincoats and galoshes doing the pat
searches and making sure the restraints were secure on the inmates getting on
and off the flight. The officer who had almost called me a nigger was out there,
and evidently they knew beforehand that I was to be on the planeload. When
the officers saw me come down the plane’s stairs, they jeered and cheered, and I
felt like the dumbest S.O.B to ever walk the earth. When it came my turn to be
searched and checked, they did it in a rougher than normal fashion and prolonged
it so that I had to stand out in the cold pouring rain for about 10 minutes with
nothing on but a t-shirt, pants, and those cloth slippers that prisoners have to
wear when traveling from prison to prison. After all of the prisoners who were on
the plane that were going to FCI Beckley had gotten off and those who were
leaving Beckley heading for prisons elsewhere had gotten on the plane, they
loaded us onto the buses and vans and took us to the prison, which is way up in
the mountains of West Virginia. I got off the bus at the exact same spot right in
front of the prison where I had gotten into the rented new Cadillac that my
mother and girlfriend had picked me up in. It seemed like it was just days ago
that I had come out of those wrought-iron gates and breathed the fresh air of
freedom for the first time in almost a decade, now here I was re-entering those
very same gates. Surprisingly those officers, even the one who had told me I
would be back, didn’t give me the hard time I thought they would once I got
back settled down in the prison. Regardless of that, it was the most hurtful
event of my life; even more hurtful than the lengthier sentence I had previously
served, and I got maybe 40 or 50 prematurely grey hairs in my head from the
experience. I spent months on end reminiscing about the thoughts that were
going through my head when I was released the first time, and how I didn’t get
a chance to fully realize my potential in my entrepreneurial aspirations and with
my personal relationships with my family and friends. I went on to serve the
entire 46 month sentence at that prison in Beckley, and was released once again
from there in November 2003. This time, the only things I carried out with me
through those gates were 4 notebook paper tablets on which I’d spent the majority
of that time there working on this book.
I chose to place this account of my personal experiences with and within the
criminal justice system at the beginning of this book because the subsequent
chapters are going to depersonalize everything that the reader gets from reading
this first chapter and put it on a “big picture” scale. There are many commonalities
between my personal experiences and the majority of the experiences of millions
of other Black men in America who are currently in prison or have been to
prison. Those commonalities that I speak of will be specifically outlined to the
reader in the following chapters, and because the characteristics of today’s many
situations involving Black men and the criminal justice system/law enforcement
are indeed so common, I felt that a descriptive and thorough first person account
of what is really going on with it was needed. The story of my own personal
experiences with the criminal justice system/law enforcement, when fully
understood, can definitely be seen as a real-life explanation of “why so many
Black men are in prison”.
Consequences When Love Is Blind ISBN-10: 0979975751 ISBN-13: 978-0979975752 Author: Linda R. Herman www.lindarherman.com Publisher: Xpress Yourself Publishing www.XpressYourselfPublishing.org This book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and everywhere books are sold!
Chapter 1 With the receiver plastered to my ear, I couldn’t believe what Andre was saying to me. It was our seventeenth wedding anniversary and he was calling to tell me he had a late meeting with a client. We wouldn’t be able to go out and celebrate as planned. I would have to call and cancel our dinner reservations. Disappointment rose from deep within, lodging in my throat. “Are you sure you can’t reschedule?” I pouted, not wanting to cancel our reservations at Chez La Vous, a popular upscale French restaurant that I had to schedule reservations six months in advance, and here he was telling me that he couldn’t make it. I planned for us to enjoy a nice dinner followed by a late night drive, and then an intense night of lovemaking. “It’s the only night he is free, Sade. I’m really sorry, baby. We’ll have to celebrate another night.” He apologized, yet again. So angry, and unable to muster a sound above a whisper, I said, “Okay,” before he told me again he was sorry and that he loved me. Damn it, I didn’t want to hear his apologies. I wanted to hear him tell me we were going to spend our anniversary together, as we’re supposed to do, and as we’d done for the last seventeen years. Placing the phone in its cradle, I solemnly headed upstairs to take off my evening gown. I didn’t need it just to sit at home and watch TVLand. George and Weezie didn’t care what I was wearing. “Why tonight?” I asked rhetorically as I dragged myself into my bedroom. I didn’t want to celebrate our anniversary some other time. I wanted to celebrate it tonight. We were married on June 15th, not the 16th or 17th. I knew how important his clients were to him but who wouldn’t understand a man being with his wife on their anniversary? Stepping out of black three-inch heels, I unzipped the gown and watched it billow down around my feet. Lazily, I picked it up and hung it in the closet, and sighed heavily. Staring at the dress, once again, disappointment knotted my stomach. I really wanted to show off my new dress. It was black and black is beautiful. It fell just below my knees and I looked great in it. At thirty-five years old, five-six and one-hundred forty-five pounds, I looked damn good. I didn’t have the pouch that some mothers couldn’t get rid of after having babies. Doing several crunches a day was how I maintained my flat tummy. My breasts were full and my hips and butt were curvy. Only wearing a red, silk thong and a matching bra, I admired my body in the full-length mirror. “Andre, how can you pass up on this? I was going to put it down tonight,” I said as I gave myself a pat on my full, firm bottom. “I know what I can do!” I yelled excitedly. Taking off the bra and thong, I pulled out a long, black trench coat from the closet, and slipped into it. I stepped back into the black three-inch heels. If Andre couldn’t come to me, I would go to him. I was determined to make sure our anniversary was memorable. With excitement building inside me, I rushed down the stairs to the kitchen and grabbed the basket of wine, strawberries and whipped cream that I prepared for our after dinner treat. Wearing nothing but a trench coat and heels, I slid behind the wheel of my silver Lexus and drove to Andre’s office. “When he sees me in this trench coat, in the middle of June, I’m sure he’ll get the hint and end his meeting ASAP!” I said to myself, as I peeled out of the driveway. In all the years of our marriage, we never made love in his office and I was looking forward to blowing his mind. When I pulled into the parking lot, Andre’s black Porsche was the only car visible. I guessed his client hadn’t made his first big vehicle purchase yet. Andre represented players in both the NBA and NFL. A lot of them purchased fancy sports cars and big houses before the ink dried on their newly negotiated contracts. I guessed this one was very new and hadn’t gotten around to that just yet. I took the elevator to the fifth floor, to Andre’s office. His secretary’s desk was empty. I wasn’t surprised. Tarilyn normally didn’t work late when Andre had after hour’s meetings with clients. She normally had all the paperwork prepared prior to five o’clock. Andre often bragged about how great of an assistant she was and had been for the past few years. We both liked her a lot. I left the basket with the wine and strawberries at her desk. Approaching Andre’s office, I noticed that the door was closed. Now, why was the door closed after hours? Standing in front of the door, and just before I knocked, I heard noises that caused me to stop, with my hand in mid-air. “Is that all you got? Come with it!” an unfamiliar male’s voice said. “Can you handle it? How about that?” Andre teased. Both sounded out of breath, panting like a couple of dogs in heat. This can’t be what it sounded like. As rage built within me, I didn’t knock on the door or even reach for the door handle. Before I knew it, I raised my leg as high as I could and kicked the door wide open! Gasping and covering my mouth, the door bounced off the wall, slowly winding down to a partial closing. The scene before me was horrific. My husband had a young man bent over his desk, with their pants down around their ankles. My legs weakened. “Oh God! Oh God!” I screamed to the top of my lungs. This had to be a nightmare. My husband wasn’t gay. The man I married, the father of my kids, would never touch another man in this way! Never had I suspected him of anything close to what I was seeing. What had I done wrong in my life to deserve this? Andre quickly withdrew from his lover and pulled up his pants. The young man was so into their disgusting lovemaking that he didn’t realize I was there. Finally, he made eye contact with me and exclaimed, “Oh shit!” “Sade…,” Andre said, walking toward me, fastening his pants. I raised my hand, stopping him in his tracks. I didn’t want him near me! I looked at the young man and yelled, “Get the hell out of here! Get out of here now before I kill your ass!” He tried to pull his pants up while running toward me, and the door. He fell but never stopped moving, quickly scattering toward the door before rising to his feet. As he passed me, he said, “I’m sorry, Ma’am. I’m so sorry!” I didn’t know who he was or even if he played basketball or football. He probably had a girlfriend who, like me, didn’t know he had a boyfriend. He’s a pretty young boy of no more than twenty-two, with a light complexion and dark wavy hair. I couldn’t tell for sure how tall he was since he was ass up over the desk and then running and falling down. “I can explain,” Andre said, with all the nerve in the world. Peering at him with a clamped mouth and fixed eyes, I yelled, “What’s to explain? I just caught you fucking another man!” “Lower your voice!” he said in a hushed tone as if it were during business hours. “Who’s going to hear me?” I asked, looking around. After a few moments of silence, he said, with a heavy sigh, “I’m not gay, Sade. I was just trying something different.” Folding my arms across my chest, I tilted my head to the side. “Not gay?” I asked in disbelief, with a raised brow. “What else is it called when a man fucks another man, Andre?” I anticipated his response. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to pick up the first thing I got my hands on and knock him in his head! “He’s gay!” he said pointing at the empty doorway. His lover, like Elvis, had left the building. I didn’t know how he arrived or how he left, but I did know for sure that he was gone. “He’s the one who gets turned out. Nobody is going up in me.” He patted his wide chest, like Tarzan. I couldn’t believe my ears. Andre was an intelligent man. He couldn’t be so naïve that he only defined gay as the man who played the bottom role. I don’t care if you’re the fucker or the fuckee, when two men had sex, or two women had sex, they are both gay! I gathered the words to a question I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to. “Is he the first?” I tightened the belt around my trench coat. I felt stupid for driving over there wearing nothing but damn high heels and a trench coat. This night would definitely be memorable but it wouldn’t be because I was the one putting it down, that’s for sure. He lowered his eyes and stared blankly at the floor. That’s when I realized I’d been living in the dark. He’d been living a double life and, as always, I, the wife, was the last to know. I sighed deeply. “How long has this been going on?” I’d been so stupid! “I was curious in high school but I didn’t start experimenting until college,” he admitted without looking at me, the coward. “It’s nothing I do all the time, Sade. Sometimes I just want something different,” he had the audacity to proclaim. I threw my hands up in surrender. “It’s different,” I sarcastically said as I turned to walk away. That much I couldn’t argue. A gay relationship was definitely different. “What’s with the trench coat?” he asked before I exited his office. I stopped abruptly and massaged my temples. I felt a headache coming on, because I couldn’t stand the sight of him or the sound of his voice. If I didn’t get out of there, I would kill him, even if I had to do it with my bear hands. I spun around, unloosened the belt and opened the coat wide. I allowed his eyes to roam over my nakedness because his hands never would again. “This is what you didn’t want,” I snarled. “Can we talk about this?” he pleaded as I closed the coat and tightened the belt around my waist. “We’re going to go and get tested for AIDS first thing Monday morning. I don’t care what kind of meetings you have. Cancel them,” I ordered as I walked out of the office. But, before I took another step, I turned to face him. “Don’t even think about coming home tonight unless you want me to cut your dick off and stick it up your ass. Now, that’s something different!” “I’m not gay!” he continued to yell as he followed on my heels. I stepped inside the elevator. “Don’t say anything about this, please!” he begged as the elevator doors closed. The tears threatened to fall but I couldn’t give into the pain, not yet. Whom would I want to tell? I’m a beautiful woman who caught her husband fucking another man. What did that say about me? Was this my fault? Was I not woman enough for him? As I’m walking off the elevator, the fuckee was in the lobby, sitting in a chair, looking pitiful. He jumped up to run toward the door when he heard the click-clack of my heels. “No need to fear. If that ten-inch dick didn’t hurt you, neither can I.” I pulled my keys out of my pocket. “You may as well go back up there and finish up. He’s not coming home with me.” “I’m sorry about everything, Ma’am. I really am,” he said with a thick Latino accent. He looked black, mixed with Puerto Rican. Even in my anger, I couldn’t deny that he was very attractive. Like Andre, he exhibited no signs of being gay. Then again, what were the signs of begin gay? Did I even know? I wasn’t mad at the young man. He’s not the man I married seventeen years ago. He didn’t father my kids. I didn’t lie beside him every night never suspecting that he was gay. No, I wasn’t mad at him at all. Actually, I pitied him because he was one more black man who was too afraid to accept and admit to his sexuality. He was one more black man who would marry and father kids but would always have that taste for something different. Every now and then, he would be a fucker or a fuckee but never admit that he was gay. “Good night,” I said to him, as the look in my eyes expressed the sadness in my heart. I was sad for both of us. I left, not caring if he returned to Andre’s office or not. I didn’t care what they did to each other. I hated what Andre had done to our marriage. How was I going to explain this to our children, family and friends? Everyone thought we were so in love; I thought it too. I really was in love. For seventeen years, we lived a fairytale life. Everything was perfect until Andre went and fucked it up with a nasty, unhappy ending. I loved him but I couldn’t stay married to him. I couldn’t pretend like my eyes played tricks on me. Through amber-colored eyes, I saw my husband having sex with another man. I would be a fool to put myself at risk by staying with him. It was shame on him when I didn’t know. Now that I knew, it was shame on me. In my mind, the disgusting scene played over and over, ugly images of my husband loving another man. And, the smell of two men that permeated the air made me sick to my stomach. “God, please let the results be negative,” I silently prayed as I pulled into my driveway, determined the next step would be to the clinic. It was hard enough to swallow the fact that my marriage was over but the worse case scenario would be receiving positive results. It’s a death sentence and there’s no undoing it. How dare he determine my fate? Who did he think he was, God? When I made my way upstairs, I fell on my bed and cried myself to sleep as darkness blanketed the room. This was not how I planned this evening.
Ghostwriter Extraordinaire Book Video Trailer: Hidden Revenge
Jason is a basketball star on the rise, but dark, hidden forces from
his past soon conspire to destroy him. Worst of all, his girlfriend and
his best friend are the masterminds behind the scheme, leaving him with
no one to trust and nowhere to turn.
When all is said and done, will he
survive the looming treachery threatening to end his future before it
even begins…?
Visit our YouTube Channel (www.YouTube.com/GWExtra) to view the video
in its entirety, and check out www.ekpowers.com for more info.
Authors & Publishers: Get Your Trailer Today – Only $150!
Web: www.GWExtra.com
Email: Info@GWExtra.com
Justifiable Behavior
Madison
My name is Madison McIntosh, and I’m from Gainesville, Florida. This story is about me and the bad choices I made while trying to find love. Whatever you do, don’t let the bad guys turn you against me. They are very clever at twisting things around to their favor.
You see, I lost my mom before I could ever lay eyes on her the day I was born. Sometimes I still get angry at her because she was warned not to get pregnant after she nearly died with a previous failed pregnancy, yet she insisted on having a child-and that child was me. It’s a tough call: her life or my existence, either way we both lost, and I don’t think Daddy ever got over it.
My father and I were alone until I reached age six. Eager to have a whole family, I helped him choose my stepmother but only because she had a daughter that was the same age as me.
When she moved in, I was so excited. I knew she was the right one for him! She pretended to have so much love for me instantly because I looked so much like my dad. Whatever! I didn’t realize how competitive and jealous she was with her daughter and me until I became a teenager.
In our younger years, if Tabitha and I would argue or fight, she would make us keep fighting until we were tired—leaning against one another shoulder-to-shoulder, head-to-head, resting our little bodies until we caught our breath. She would then separate us and make us go at it some more until we were both black and blue all over. When my dad would intervene, she would say that this was her way of making sure we’d never fight each other again—that we were sisters and the only way to remind us that sisters don’t fight is to make us fight until we couldn’t fight anymore-that we’d get it all out of our system. Needless to say, it pretty much worked. I couldn’t do anything back then except take whatever dish I was served. I guess you can say I was fed a whole lot of bullshit over the years.
Even today, I’m a grown woman who has grown accustomed to settling for leftovers or what little I could get. Bottom line is that I was left out, lonely, and was about to whiter away to dust if it had not been for the internet where I could be whoever I wanted to be.
When I read Avery’s profile, I fell in love immediately. He had talked about wanting a serious relationship and how he’s been hurt many times, and that he was reaching out once again to trust someone with his heart. But the one sentence in his profile that made me smile most was “No pictures please, I want to just write and get to know the woman that I choose before I lay eyes on her.”. He mentioned how looks was not important. He just seemed so real that I fell in love with him, and I felt he needed me. He had the family I never had. He was perfect besides the fact that he was oh so sexy and even better looking in person than on his pictures that we had finally exchanged. I couldn’t wait to rush home to read my emails each day, which went from night and day phone calls to flying to see him for a couple of weekends.
So there I was on my way to see him, staring out the plane’s window in Miami, Florida. The city looked beautiful from the sky, but Avery made it more fabulous on ground level. That’s why this time I had taken a week vacation to see him—a weekend was not enough time to be with the man I love. Something told me deep down that we were meant to be, and I was ready to follow my gut. I could feel it in the bottom of my stomach that this trip was going to be one that I would never forget.
When the plane landed, I stayed planted in my seat and continued to look out the window as the pushy passengers piled deep into the aisles. My heart fluttered and my belly filled with butterflies. I started trembling. I was in love. This was my third trip to see this man, yet each time I felt like a little girl inside. What was I thinking meeting a guy online and having a relationship with him so far from home? I could only point the finger at the fact that I’d just wanted to run away from my own family and never return. I guess I just felt like being reckless for a change, the way my stepsister Tabitha is. And I admit it felt good to miss-behave, especially when it came to Avery. He had me charmed. The minute I stepped off the plane, Avery’s face is all I searched for. The closer I got to the arrival gate, the more my heart pounded. He was easy to find, just look for the one who appeared most anxious. Avery didn’t seem nervous at all as he waited for me to reach him. He walked towards me in his relaxed fit jeans denims and a white shirt with peach pinstripes. A dark-skinned, smooth, clean-cut brother looking finer than ever. This time I knew he was going to have to break a sister off on this visit for sure.
“Hey baby!” I said as I stopped within two feet of him waiting for him to close the rest of the distance between us. He opened his arms wide for a hug.
“Come here girl,” he said with a huge grin as he pulled my face towards his for a kiss that soiled my panties. “So what would you like to do this week?”
“I don’t know, we could stay in-I mean you showed me the city the last two visits. I just want you this time.”
“Well not the entire week, but maybe tonight I can make that happen. Anyway do you like fish, are you hungry?”
“Famished, although we’re miles apart, don’t forget I’m still a Floridian. Of course I love fish.”
“Good, I prepared one of my special entrées, and I picked out some movies for us to chill. I’m going to take you out tomorrow to a house party one of my boys is having, you’ll get to meet the gang finally.”
“Can’t wait.” I smiled nervously, wondering if his friends knew how we met.
Avery grinned as he grabbed my suitcase from my hand. Once we got to the apartment and stepped off the 5th floor elevator, the hallway was lit up with the best smelling aroma. Avery pushed open his apartment door. A gentleman was opening a beer at the sink.
“Madison, this is Rock. He lives on the third floor and is also the superintendent and a former player for the Dallas Cowboys until he injured his knee.”
Rock extended his hand out with a shiny smile on his face.
“Nice to meet you. My boy talks about you all the time.”
“Pleased to meet you, too. I’m sorry to hear about your knee. You played with Emmit Smith? That must have been great?”
“It was nothing—that was so many years ago.” Rock turned to Avery and saluted him as he exited the door—he turned back to face us. “You two have fun.”
“We’ll be doing just that most definitely!” Avery said while wrapping his arms around me and kissing the back of my neck with his warm lips.
“What are you doing?” I asked, knowing I was ready for him, too.
“What does it look like, I’m kissing my woman.” As he placed another one, and another one on my lips and all down my neck, I couldn’t hold on to my purse any longer. I dropped my purse to the floor and he led me backwards into his bedroom, in a powerful lip lock position.
“I want you so bad, Madison, I can hardly wait.”
“Well I’m not going to.”
That was all it took for me to have said before he laid me halfway down across his bed. He pulled my top over my head and quickly unfastened my bra. He cupped my breasts into his hands kissing them and breathing hard moaning as if they tasted good to him. I moaned back as I tied my legs into a knot around his waist. He unwrapped my legs and pulled up my mini that I purposely wore. He began to lick right through my panties, biting softly with his lips.
“Oh my God,” I moaned. I eased my body up so he could slide my panties off and he positioned me to the center of the bed. “Take your clothes off, Avery. I need to see you.” I moaned. He quickly undid his buckle and kicked his way out of his jeans while he unbuttoned his shirt, nearly ripping off the final layer he tossed his wife-beater to the floor. Avery looked so scrumptious; I chewed at my bottom lip while I stared at him. He crawled towards me and quickly pinned my thighs back as he began to taste me until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“My body is on fire. Take me Avery, please.” I whispered passionately. “I needed this. I love you.” I kept whispering. The passion quickly stopped.
“Say what? Do you mean that Madison? Do you really love me?” he trembled to know, but his stare questioned my feelings. I was almost afraid to admit it was true—at least I thought it was true. I had hoped it to be true, and it damn sure felt true. “Did I say something wrong baby?” I refused to get twisted up in an all but too-soon-conversation, and I certainly was not trying to scare him.
“No, no don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. I like it—I like it a lot.” He kissed and sucked at my breast pulling my nipple into his mouth. “I love you to,” he said in his next breath.
I felt a sensational emotion of happiness. Avery slid on a condom and inserted himself inside of me. I lost my breath as he dug deep into my cervix opening doors and touching corners that no man had ever touched before. I moaned loud and talked sexy. I caught a glimpse of the time. Thirty minutes had passed as Avery made me feel like a new woman. He rolled off to his back and pulled me on top of him. I thought it was my turn to work him over but he lifted my butt cheeks in his strong hands and began moving me in the angles that he wanted my body to go, and then he asked. “Tell me when I hit your spot, Baby.”
“Okay,” I moaned as sweat dripped from my nostril. I sniffed and felt my nose begin to run. Avery continued to stir inside my body and slide me up and down his hard steel until I squealed, “Don’t stop baby, please!”
“Yeah I found it, didn’t I?” he asked.
I opened my eyes; he was looking right into them. “Yes baby you found it, you found it.” I said slowly. I never felt this before…my body began to tighten around his dick as I became frozen not wanting to let it go. He realized he had reached the right spot and he held me into place, I could feel the veins in my neck tighten fiercely and I let go finally and climaxed all over him. I know I must have looked hideous, but I was totally satisfied. My body shook like I’d been electrocuted. Gasping for air, I collapsed on his chest praying that he had cum too because there was nothing left of me. I lifted my head to speak between short breaths. “Did you cum?”
“You better know it! That was so good,” he answered
“That was the best ever,” I added
“Yeah that was a good one for you, wasn’t it?”
I nodded and I tried to relax. I rolled to my back—both our bodies were soaking wet. The sheet had come undone from the bed from being at it for over an hour. I had never cum like that ever in my life…In fact, I don’t think I had ever cum before after feeling what I had just felt.
I lay inside his arm between the sweaty bed sheets playing his sexual moves over and over in my head like it had been recorded. My body still quivered and I was exhausted like hell. I just stared at his body; ripped like I don’t know what—his sweetness looks prettier than an oversized snicker bar during my monthly cycle.
He pulled me closer to him. “Are you ready for seconds?”
I just smiled knowing he’s just as exhausted as I was. I patted his chest and shook my head. “No.” I whispered turning my body away from him holding my breath trying to calm my breathing to the point that only I alone could hear it.
He laughed at me with one leg arched, but suddenly noticed I wasn’t smiling.
“Okay what’s on your brain…spit it out?” He demanded to know.
“I’m just thinking…and I know I just got here, but it’s going to be pretty hard to leave you on Sunday morning.” I don’t know why but I felt the need to throw that out there.
“Yeah well just like last time, isn’t that normal? We still got our emails, the telephone and other ways of dealing with pleasing one another, the same way we did the day before your flight here, which was pretty damn good for phone sex. Maybe I can visit you next time.”
“Yeah I know, it’s just that um well—,”
“The dick got you, huh?” Avery chuckled, grabbing hold of his goods. “Don’t worry, I understand. It has the same effect on every woman I’ve ever been with.”
“Now that was an insensitive thing to say! I guess the I-love-you part was just natural sex talk.” I got out of bed and walked out of the bedroom into the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice. I leaned against the kitchen sink and noticed that Avery had a photo of me from my profile stuck on his fridge. It enabled me to crack a slight smile.
“Wow what a relief. I thought you were upset so what brought about the smile?” he asked while tying a knot to fasten his robe.
“Oh I’m still upset with you, but I’m not going to let it spoil things. I’m here now; I may as well make the best of it.” I untied the knotted loop and began to draw my attention below his navel. Avery backed away slowly rubbing both hands over his face as if he was worried or stressed. He seemed to be struggling for words. “Do you want to go back to Gainesville?” He managed to force from his lips.
“I took a week off; I’m due back to work next Monday. Avery, of course I have to go back.”
“That wasn’t the question—let me ask you again. Do you want to go back to Gainesville to stay?” He grabbed my hand inside his, “The key word here is want. It’s as simple as one-two-three. Now can I get a yes or no answer, Madison McIntosh?”
“No, I don’t…but I just bought a car. I’ve signed a new lease…I’ve got bills, and I don’t even want to worry about what my father would say when I tell him.” What the hell am I thinking? This is exactly what I wanted, so why can’t I just say yes and be done? My thoughts were edging me forward. Nervous and speechless, we both walked to the couch and took a seat.
Avery sighed again rubbing his head. “I don’t know, Babe. You pretty much got me on that one. I’m not a rich man. I do own my own business and I’m doing all right—I can probably cover your bills for a few months until you’re back on your feet and able to help yourself.”
I noticed the grief in Avery’s face as if this was going to be hard for him. I reached out and grabbed him around the neck bringing his lips to mine and sealed the deal with a kiss. “Yes, I’d love to stay with you, but you have to promise me that this is what you want and that I’m not putting you out of your expenses or anything.”
“Let me worry about what I can do—okay?”
“Ok, Baby, I am all yours.”
“Now are you ready to taste this fine recipe I cooked?” He said as he walked away into the kitchen and I followed.
“Yes, after I shower.”
Avery eased me out of the kitchen. “Go ahead and start the shower while I get things situated.” He patted my butt as he pushed me towards the bathroom door. “I will join you in a few minutes.”
We showered, and finished eating one delicious dinner, then we cuddled on the couch and watched, ‘Two Can Play That Game’, and ‘Brothers.’ I had dozed off with a full stomach while watching ‘Brothers.’ Avery awakened me to go to the bedroom where he had replaced the sheets and the bed was nice and fresh only for us to start all over again.
www.msthangwrites.com
www.myspace.com/jatanawilliams
NOT an urban christian book…an entertaining tale of sex, marriage and trying to do the right thing.
“LORD, HELP ME. You said before I even say my prayers you will answer. HELP ME!”
I’m standing in the mirror wearing my Sunday best for what I feel is going to be my last time. The tears coming down my face are no longer made of saltwater but of blood. The face that I’ve been so proud of and quick to brag about is now bruised. I should’ve taken my ass straight to church and not to Mr. Dress Shop’s crib. This is one time I needed to pass on getting to know a brotha better…….
I’m sitting in this oversized burgundy sofa chair wearing a black lace corset, crotchless panties, lacey thigh highs, and a pair of hooker shoes from a Halloween costume from years ago. The clothes I wore to meet him are thrown around the hotel room as if a hurricane just hit. I was on my way to my church’s weekly bible study meeting when he sent me a text to come see him tonight. Bible study is always held on Thursdays. For the last few weeks, I haven’t missed once; and I wasn’t planning on missing it tonight. I agreed to this last minute plan and told him I’d see him after nine. Usually when I meet up with a man, I’m already prepared. I’m already dressed in my seductive lingerie and leave straight from my house. Tonight, I had to stop off the freeway to change clothes in a gas station restroom. Good thing I left some of my ‘sexies’ in the trunk of my car from another meet and greet session. I never hook up with someone unless it’s a Friday or Saturday night, but he said this was all he had open for weeks. I didn’t want to pass up on the opportunity of getting to know a brotha better.
Hmm…looking around I have to say this is one of the most stylish hotel rooms I’ve been in recently. It has Asian color palettes with 1940’s inspired cherry wood furniture and floor to ceiling windows. The city light shining through the windows makes the room luminous and gives it a romantic feeling. I guess reading all those damn home decorator magazines taught me a little something. His choice of rendezvous location proves to me that he’s got good taste. Really the fact I’m here proves he has excellent taste. That’s not a conceited statement; I just know I’m the shit! I can tell he took time preparing for my arrival. He’s got a tea light and votive candle on each nightstand and the room is filled with the scent of jasmine. There’s a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with two wines glasses on the table in the sitting area.
I look into the bathroom and admire his naked body. He stands in front of the Spanish marble sink with his dick rock hard, shaving and singing “PYT.” This man can’t hold a note to save his life but it doesn’t matter. I didn’t come here tonight to hold talent auditions. Hell, if I did, I’m not looking for that kinda talent. He notices me in the mirror staring at him and gives me a smile. A man with a nice smile and big lips is a natural aphrodisiac for me. His smile is what caught my attention in the first place…
It was Monday morning around 7:30. We were both waiting for our orders at the local coffee house. I saw him standing by the table of discounted coffee mugs texting on his cell phone. He looked up at me and there it was…a smile sent down from the Greek gods! I remember feeling a twitch between my legs when he did it. I stood straight and fixed my hair. I wondered if he noticed me foaming at the mouth over the pastries. I was talking myself out of buying a piece of lemon pound cake when he walked up behind me and told me to go ahead and have one. “I’ll treat you,” he said. That was how our conversation started.
I explained to him why I was on a diet and all about how my battle with being overweight had begun in my childhood. He explained to me why he’s always loved big women; he considers them to be sexy. He told me his mother raised him by herself and she was a big woman. I never considered myself to be big but I rolled with it. I didn’t want this to be our first and last conversation. When the guy behind the counter called out “J” we both walked up to grab the coffee cup. We laughed and stood in the way of others trying to get their orders as we exchanged phone numbers. He ended up walking me out to my car. We talked and sipped on our coffee. He told me he works for a marketing firm in their IT department. He does side work designing websites for small black businesses. He has plans of going to Africa for six months to teach a school how to do computer programming. Not only was he sexy but he was smart. I found him to be very interesting and became attracted to his personality as much as I was to his body. The conversation was so good before we knew it we had drank up our coffee and he was late to work…
He turns around to look at me “I hope you like the scent of jasmine? I sprayed a little bit on the bed.”
“Yeah, it smells good.”
I’m rubbing my hand up and down my thighs. Besides trying to look sexy, I’m rubbing trying to remember his name. I always forget names. I never let on to men that I don’t remember. It’s better not to know a brotha’s name then to get names mixed up. There’s nothing worse then calling out the wrong name during an orgasm. I always give men nicknames according to how I met them. My name for him is Mr. Coffee. Of course, I don’t tell the men this. Their nicknames are just for me to know. If people were to look at my cell phone address book it would trip them out. I have names like Mr. Gym Parking Lot, Mr. Grocery Store Bread Aisle, and Mr. Gas Pump. These men don’t matter to me so why should I learn names anyway.
He looks back into the mirror and continues shaving. “Jasmine with JJ, together they stimulate my mind and you’re sure to stimulate my body.”
His comment sounds like some shit said in a Harlequin novel. But his effort to be romantic is cute and I make note of it. It actually reminds me of when I first met my husband Darius. He was so cute. Damn…speaking of my husband I said I wasn’t going to do this again. I told myself the last time I cheated…was the last time, but here I am again and I can’t wait for it! I’m feeling inpatient so I get out of the chair, walk into the bathroom, and stand behind him. He knows I’m up to something because his smile got bigger. I start stroking his dick and kissing him on his back. Mr. Coffee’s feeling me because he can’t stop flashing those pearly whites. I stand in front of him so I can kiss those luscious lips. I have to get on my tippy toes because he stands about 6’4 and I’m only 5’5.
His dark, smooth skin makes my mouth water. He reminds me of the fudge topping I put on my ice cream. I bet he tastes just as good. He’s powerfully built and by the story in his eyes he’s nothing to be played with. I better come with it or he might split me in half. I’ll make sure I take my time and not get him too excited. I don’t want him pulling my hair or smacking my ass too hard. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good freak every now and then, but getting my ass whooped while trying to bust one is not on my To Do list. I wonder if I’m even gonna be able to handle this man. He looks like he’s been in the desert for weeks without water. I know he’s strong so I have to make sure I’m in control. I always have to be in control anyway. I can feel his body tensing up. I need to get him relaxed. Hmm…How can I take his mind where I want it to go? I take the razor out of his hand and place it on the sink. I wipe what’s left of the shaving cream off of his face. I put one of the bath towels over the toilet seat.
“Sit down.” I demand.
“Right here?” he asks.
I push him down on the toilet.
“Yeah, right here!”
I grab the condom from on top of the sink, unwrap it and place it on top of a wash cloth so I can have quick access. I’m not trying to be unprepared. That’s what gets folks caught up. Trying to un-wrap these child proof wrappers is enough to make me say fuck it! But I have too much to lose by not protect myself. ‘Wrap it up’ is my motto. I gained this motto from learning some tough ass life lessons. When I was younger all I cared about was feeling a raw dick. Butt-naked was my motto back then. Now, I know better.
I get on my knees and spread his legs apart. I take the tip of my tongue and run it up and down the shaft of his dick. I suck the head into my mouth then take it out just to tease him. I start stroking it with the palms of both hands. I look up at him, watching as he leans his head back and moans. Now, he’s relaxed. Ooh, his moaning is exciting me! I feel the wetness from my pussy form a stream in between my thighs. I can’t wait to feel him inside of me. I start sucking his dick. The harder I suck the more he moans and the more I get excited! I start sucking so damn good he can’t do nothing but grab for shit in the air that don’t even exist and smile big!
Mr. Coffee knocks over the complimentary toiletries and pulls the towels down from the rack behind his head. His smile is different from a few minutes ago. It’s a smile of exhilaration and of pleasure. I take pride in knowing he’s enjoying himself. It makes me want to please him more. I want to keep going until he cums. Suddenly, he grabs me by the shoulders.
“Get up!’ He demands.
I’m confused.“What?”
“Get up and sit on my dick!”
I quickly grab the condom and put it on him.
He laughs.“You makin’ sure I don’t give you nothin’!”
I respond with sassiness, “You don’t know me and I don’t know you.”
“Well, babe. I hate to tell you but you can catch shit in your mouth!”
I make sure the condom is on good.“Don’t fuck up the moment!”
“Nah, I ain’t doing that one. Do what you do, ma.”
He shows off how strong he is by bending over and putting his hands around my waist. He pulls me up on top of him. I’m no small female, so this move turns me on! I’m riding his dick like he’s a black stallion horse and I’m his jockey. I’m digging into his back with my nails and he’s softly biting me on the neck and sucking my titties.
He yells, “Ride it, babe! Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ bout!”
I love when a man talks to me. Letting me know I’m handling my business. I want to take this to the next level of ecstasy. So, I tighten up my pussy muscles and rotate my waist like a belly dancer. That’s too much for him to take.
“Ah shit, I’m cumin’!” He shouts.
He cums so hard. It’s like a pipe busted! We sit in each other’s arms silent. For a moment, I think about how much he reminds me of my husband Darius, but only for a moment. Feeling his dick throb makes me want some more. I’m ready for round two, but he still wants to sit here. I’m frustrated, so I get up and wash myself off. He’s sitting on the toilet with his eyes closed and rubbing his hands through his thick, beautiful, salt-n-pepper dreads.
I pull him by the arms.“Let’s take this to the bed.”
“That sounds good. I’m ready for a nap.”
A nap! Ah, hell no! I guess I’m gonna have to remind Mr. Coffee that I didn’t get mine and that’s the point of me bringing my ass here. Before I can say anything, he stands up, picks me up and carries me over to the bed. He’s standing over me and his dick is hard again. I look up at him and wet my lips.
“Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ bout!”
Mr. Coffee walks over to his pants and pulls a handful of condoms out of the pocket. “I’m prepared!”
I give out a little laugh. “Damn, I guess so!”
He slowly puts the tip of his dick inside of me. That’s all he puts in at first is the tip. He’s teasing me. “This is pay back for earlier.” He states while showing his beautiful smile.
Before I know it Mr. Coffee starts turning me out. He strokes my pussy in rhythm like he’s on the dance floor. Damn, this man knows what he’s doing! He’s not just the average in and out brotha. He’s making circular motions and moving his waist from side to side. He’s hittin’ the corners of my pussy I forgot I had! Now, I understand how women get caught up stalking men. If they’re putting it down like this all the time, it’s like giving crack heads one hit and then telling ‘em to go away. It’s not gonna happen like that. They’re coming back until they get another hit. Shit, I knew he was going to be good but I didn’t know this damn good! It’s so good I lost count of how many times we came. All I know is there’s a sea of condoms on the floor.
“You gonna pick those up?” I ask him laughing.
He pulls out another condom.
“Right after I hit it again.”
“Ooh, go ahead and make me a crack FEN!”
“What was that babe?”
“Nothing, do what you do!”
I wake up to find Mr. Coffee is gone. The bottle of wine is still sitting there and a cart with breakfast and a white carnation. I find a note is on the table in the middle of the room. I get up and stumble over. My legs are still weak from last night. It’s been a long time since a man has made my legs weak. I’m looking at what’s on the cart trying to see if there’s anything good. It was nice of him to make sure I ate. That must be part of his liking big girls—keep ‘em big! Let me stop. How sweet. The note is sitting on a piece of lemon pound cake. Huh, I might have to remember his name. I pour myself a cup of coffee and read the note written on the hotel stationery.
Hey Jasmine,
I enjoyed last night. If we were not already married, I’d ask you to be my wife. That’s how good it was! Holla atcha later!
Big J
Hmm…now he’s gone to far with shit! Dude reminds me a lot of my husband but not that much to be my husband! Hell, I can’t see myself married to nobody but Darius; but because his dick was so damn good, I’m gonna have a hard time shaking thoughts of this brotha. He made my legs shake! Let me get my mind right. Mr. Coffee was just another piece for me. I can’t be catching feelings for a man just because he laid the pipe right. I throw the note in a wastebasket and grab a piece of toast. I take a bite. It’s hard and dry as hell with no damn butter!
“Must be white folks cookin’ in this hotel!”
I throw the toast down and finish up my coffee. I walk into the bathroom and start running the shower. I stand in the mirror. “Damn, what’s wrong with you? Look at yourself Jasmine James-Brooks!”
I’ve always had this fear of losing who I was once I got married; even though, I wasn’t exactly sure who I was. So when I finally did jump the broom, I thought it was a good idea to hyphenate my last name. The idea of no longer being referred to as ‘JJ’ wasn’t working for me. My dumb ass didn’t know marrying somebody wasn’t going to change what people have been calling me for years. JJ is my nickname from childhood and hearing it helps me keep it real. Just because I’m livin’ the good life doesn’t mean I have to change. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t, regardless of what name I carry around. The scars and beauty marks of my past are what made me. Not a name.
Hell, it’s easy to drop off a brotha’s last name but hard to get rid of them bastards. Right now I’m not trippin’ ‘bout that. My life with Darius is sweet. We have our ups and downs but we’re good for each other. He shows me how folks with money live and I show him how to BYOB at a garden party. Ha ha, for those of you who don’t know, a garden party is what rich white folks call a BBQ! Sometimes I forget I don’t have to be ghetto about everything I do. Yeah, I’m not the best person in the world, but I’m not the worst either. Darius is not perfect. He has his little evil ways. But one thing I do know, he’d never put a hand on me or try to hurt me in any other way. Yeah, I make mistakes but the Lord always forgives me and so does Darius.
The Lord already knows I’m hardheaded. I try to fix my wrongs by giving more then ten percent in tithes. I show up early to church for Sunday school and help clean up after service. I don’t know what else I should be doing. I’m a good person, but I’m still young. Only old folks close to dying worry about their walk with God. At least I’m working on my walk with Him now and not waiting until I’m on my death bed. I still have time to get it right. I’m only thirty-eight years old.
I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. Darius is very supportive of me. He’s put me in different courses and certificate programs over the years. I’ve never finished any of them because in the middle I found out I didn’t like none of them. My husband doesn’t get upset. He makes real good money, so it’s not as if he’s trying to get me a job. When I’m not in class, I end up having too much time on my hands. I try to keep myself occupied with activities while my husband is gone on business trips; but the PTA isn’t as exciting as forbidden sex in a five star hotel on a Friday night. I try to go to the gym a couple of times a month. All that does is give me more opportunities to meet other men. I get on a couple of machines and work up a sweat, but I have a short attention span. I end up standing by the water fountain collecting phone numbers. I use to be self-conscious about the scar on my neck and my kangaroo pouch stomach. I would go to the gym all covered up in sweats. Once I started reflecting on the things my grandma use to teach me and realized how fine in the face I am and that I have a stop traffic ass and thighs. Huh, nobody could tell me shit! Hell, I’m too damn fine for men to pass me by. They can’t help but want to try and hit this at least once. So I don’t have to explain how the gym is not the best place for me to go.
And I don’t like hanging with a bunch of females, so girl’s night out is not happening. Shit, I’m no longer a girl; I’m a grown ass woman. I don’t have time to play on the playground. Anyway, females are too busy being in your business or trying to be in the bed with your man. I only have one close friend and she knows a lot of dirt on me. I never trip about her telling it, because her dirt is mud. There’s a reason for only having one close friend. The fewer witnesses I have, the better.
I’ve also tried doing volunteer work for different shelters but even that doesn’t keep me from feeling lonely for a man’s touch. My husband doesn’t go on these trips often. He’s not gone for weeks at a time. At the most, he’s away from home four days; but those four days are so long, I can’t stand it. I thank the Lord I’m not married to a military man. They’re away from home too much. I have to get mine on the regular. I’d completely lose my mind if I had to wait for six months or longer. Then again, I wouldn’t wait. I’d be doing the same thing I’m doing right now—taking care of getting me some dick. You see, my sexual desires overtake me on a daily. Having sex for me is just like eating breakfast everyday. I need it to get me going and it’s the most important meal of the day. Look, I’m trying to fight these desires; but, so far, I’m losing the battle.
When I was a teenager, my grandma warned me, “JJ, baby, when you hit your mid-thirties, you gonna get excited by looking at the shape of a lamp post!”
My grandma swore there was some crazy sexual curse put on all the women in our family. Supposedly it hits us when we reach our thirties. I use to laugh it off because she was known for her exaggeration. I’m sure if she was around today, she’d have some new crazy ass story to tell.
I wish grandma was around. I need someone to talk to about what’s been going on with me. I’m having this uninvited battle between doing right and wrong. Between loving the man God has given me and not loving him. I want to be faithful; and, then again, I don’t. I’m sure it has something to do with me going to church and studying the bible. That’s why I waited so many years to start going to church faithfully. Don’t trip, I went to church growing up but nothing ever stuck. That’s because I never wanted to have a conscious. Now that I’m getting one, everything looks and feels different. Being sexually promiscuous or, in layman’s terms, a ho is starting to bother me, but I have this thing about fucking other man that excites me and I can’t control it.
Don’t get it twisted. My husband is a real good man. They’re hard to find these days. He’s also a good lover. Nobody can kiss me the way he does. Matter of fact, nobody can lick the kitty the way he does. When he’s home, he definitely takes care of business. I love the hell outta my husband. I love who he is and what he stands for. The truth is, besides the Lord, my husband is the only other reason I keep it pushing everyday. Darius came into my life and brought stability and a comfortable lifestyle.
I know you’re wondering why I just fucked Mr. Coffee if my life is so sweet with my husband. Hell, I don’t know! Maybe you can tell me what’s going on. Yeah, I’ve heard it all before from my girl about how my husband must not be fulfilling my needs. Yeah, I’ve watched Oprah, Montel, and even sat through ten minutes of Dr. Phil. What is the problem? None of these shows helped me to find out why I cheat on such a good man. I know I should find a way to figure this out, but I’ll be damned if I go talk to some psychiatrist or therapist who don’t know shit about us and tell all my business. I’m gonna have to do what my pastor always says and take it to the Lord.
Ace of Hearts
CHAPTER ONE
Shevaughn left the precinct in her gold ’79 Audi 5000. On the expressway, she listened to the Whispers sing “Olivia”, one of her all time favorites while she waited for traffic to move. The song about a prostitute made her think of her life in contrast.
She had worked at the Twenty-Third Precinct for the past seven years during which time she had gone from rookie to detective. There was really not much else to note. At thirty-one, she had no children and no steady man. In fact, all her male friends were co-workers. Yes, she was lonely sometimes. Married to my job, she thought. What else did she have?
She wondered if her lack of boyfriends was due to her appearance. Hell, no! That’s not it. She frowned, thinking dear Lord, there must be at least one man out there waiting for me!
In her short dating experience, she’d only been with three men. She had been smitten with an attractive stranger while in her senior year of high school. She’d gone to a gymnastics exhibition and one of the athletes caught her attention. He had golden skin and green eyes. Well, his eye color depended on his mood or what color he wore. He was FINE.
She was ashamed to admit it, but she had done everything possible to get him to notice her and when he did, they had only dated for a couple of months. She gave him her virginity at the end of the second month, her anticipation not allowing her to wait any longer. The experience had been very disappointing. Obviously, he’d been working out the wrong muscles!
Then there was her first husband. What he lacked in the romance department, he made up in freakiness. He had taught her all she knew about sex. She had lived a whole year in a haze of sexual satisfaction until she found out he was giving the same lessons to two other women who lived right in their apartment building!
After the divorce, she waited three long years before falling for her next love. He was an older man, separated from his wife. Had she been as mature then as she was now, she would have known there was no future in it, but she had been so young and the sex had been so good. Before the sheets had cooled that man was back with his wife and Shevaughn was just a memory.
Memories depressed her and consequently, depression made her hungry. Shevaughn decided to treat herself to dinner and a little music. She wanted to check out this new jazz guitarist, Emily Remler, who was playing at “The Basement”, a tiny club in Asperia. She drove until she got to 21st and Finley and parked in a spot near the entrance.
She felt nothing as she walked down the long, dark stairwell to the club entrance. Fear was the least of her worries, especially since she was armed. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and soon she could see as clearly, as if it was daylight. Inside it was quiet, almost empty. She counted nine patrons other than herself.
The waiter seated her at a table for two near the stage and gave her a menu. She ordered their specialty shrimp salad and a glass of the house Chardonnay. She sipped her wine, looking at the empty chair. It was depressing as hell and only stood to serve as a reminder of how lonely she was.
The musicians moved methodically across the stage setting up equipment, which seemed to occupy her mind, until someone stepped into her view.
“Excuse me, are you waiting for someone?” His voice was deep and smooth.
She looked up and found herself speechless. Hell, this guy looked like he had stepped off the pages of GQ magazine!
“Uh… no,” she said at first, but upon further reflection added, “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to be alone.”
“That’s fine,” the handsome stranger responded, “Maybe we’ll talk later?”
“Maybe…”
Shevaughn watched him leave and was surprised at the lust she felt. That was the only way to explain it. Blaming it on her mood and the wine, she put her glass down as Emily Remler came on stage.
Emily introduced herself, announcing the spring release of her first album, “Firefly”, and began playing the title cut, a perky, upbeat number. The music was intoxicating and fun, enticing Shevaughn to order another glass of Chardonnay. The next song was a bossa nova that drew a few couples to the little dance floor, leaving Shevaughn to watch with envy.
Closing her eyes, she got lost in the music, listening to Emily play a cool guitar, imagining herself on the dance floor, letting the music take her away. When she opened her eyes, there he stood again!
He held out his hand and she took it, rising from the table to join him on the dance floor as if in a trance.
He led her to the center of the floor, where their bodies melted together, magically becoming one. It was hard to resist his sensuous magnetic pull. There was a tightening within as her groin pulsated with a rhythm of its own. Blood rushed to her head, erotic warmth filled her body. She hadn’t felt this hot in a long time.
Pumped with a mixture of exhilaration and adrenaline, Shevaughn felt sublime. What was it about him that turned her on so? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was a sense of danger about him that made her feel a bit nervous. She was attracted to him — so much so she even thought about just saying, “C’mon, let me take you home.” She couldn’t believe she was actually contemplating her first one night stand!
Common sense quickly prevailed and not knowing this man from Adam, she reluctantly broke his hold. Despite her fierce attraction and burning loins, she decided to head home alone.
He was quite the gentleman, walking her to her car. After taking her keys and opening the car door for her, he snatched her up, like a rag doll, and kissed her slowly. It started innocently enough, just two lips slightly touching, when she threw caution to the wind and parted her lips. She felt the sweet sensation of surrender as his tongue softly touched hers, but he stopped and kissed the tip of her nose before allowing her to slip into her car.
She was half way home when she realized they had not exchanged names. She pondered the mystery and magnetism of this handsome stranger whose kiss lingered. It definitely ranked as one of the most intimate moments of her life and the feeling was so intense that even after sleep, she awoke with the memory of his kiss still on her lips. Smiling, she lay in bed for a while, relishing the sensation.
Shevaughn arrived at work by seven fifty-five, five minutes early, as usual. There were two incomplete case histories waiting on her desk. Like ‘cause I’m Black, I’m some kind of clean up woman? She refused to let it spoil her mood, for unlike most of her fellow officers, she really didn’t mind doing them. It gave her a chance to examine each file in detail. Sure, none of this was glamorous, but as long as she participated in the justice system, she was satisfied and felt important. Old cliché or not, keeping the neighborhood safe for the children and families she served, made her feel good, needed.
Shevaughn was on page three of the second report when she noticed a yellow Post-It note stuck under the cover. Tony O’Brien called. He wanted an appointment. Where had she heard that name before?
She rolled the name through her memory. Then it hit her. Tony O’Brien, the reporter. The same reporter who broke the police pension fund story, putting a spotlight and blemish on every man and woman in uniform. She had just begun her new tour as a detective, when the story broke about a group of higher echelon cops and their sticky fingers. It wasn’t their exemplary arrest and conviction record they became famous for, but stealing from the pockets and pensions of their brothers and sisters in blue. First, a rumor, then confirmed, they used the money to invest in stocks and a few get-rich quick schemes, none of which proved to be profitable. Tony broke the story in the Portsborough Journal and hit the jackpot, making a name for himself. However, cashing in made him persona non grata with the police force.
She thought about the note again. Calling Tony O’Brien, even on a good day, was the last thing she wanted to do.
__♥__
Tony thought about calling Detective Shevaughn Robinson again. Every female officer he’d tried had ignored his calls. He was on a deadline and his editor-in-chief was very specific about what his next feature would be, “Women, The New Breed of Cop”.
Shevaughn Robinson was the first black female detective in the City of Portsborough, New York. A history-making event, it caused all kinds of backlash at first. He wanted to hear her side of the story. How did it feel to be working in the male dominated environment? How does it feel to be the only one? Maybe he would just drop by and speak with her in person. Turn on some of that old Irish-Italian charm.
Tony knew how to charm the women. Currently, he was juggling two, Ellen Goldberg and Natalie Martinez. If anyone asked, he would say Ellen was his lady. As for Natalie, well, she was his standby. He wasn’t in love with her, but they were close. Sometimes, when he needed companionship or the occasional sex partner, she was there for him. So far, his luck was holding, four months and they were non-the-wiser. Women were a lot easier to handle when they thought they were exclusive.
Deciding he would go see her, Tony went to the men’s room to check his appearance. He ran his hands through his curly brown hair as he looked in the mirror. Smiling, he pulled his shirt collar over his jacket collar and smoothed it out, wanting to look presentable. Whistling, he walked down the hall and out to the parking lot, ready to go meet Detective Robinson.
__♥__
Shevaughn nearly starved while trying to make up her mind between Italian and Chinese for lunch. A knock interrupted her thoughts.
“Come in.”
She didn’t bother to look up, almost knowing that it was just one of the clerks dropping off more cases.
“Sit the files over there.”
She pointed with her head still buried in a menu.
“Uh, Hummm!”
She looked up.
“May I help you?” “Detective Robinson?”
“Yes, what can I do for you?”
Oooh, she thought, now that was a loaded question.
What could she do for this handsome, terribly delicious looking man? All of a sudden, she wasn’t hungry anymore.
“My name’s Tony O’Brien of NBS news.”
As he spoke, she checked him out. For some odd reason, she thought he would be short, since most news reporters she’d met were shorter in person. He looked to be about six feet tall, with an athletic, slender, but muscular build. She wondered if he’d played sports in his heyday. He had medium length curly brown hair with just a hint of auburn and brown eyes which seemed to show a hint of mischief — even when he smiled. He was clean-shaven with dimples and had a sexy cleft chin. His full lower lip just begged to be nibbled. Whoa, girl! Where did that come from?
Last night’s encounter definitely had her horns up! Dismissing the thought, she continued looking him over.
He was casually dressed in a tan suit with a camel and dark brown print shirt. He was a vision in brown.
“My station has decided to run a series on the new breed of cops — females and minorities.”
“And with me you figured you could kill two birds with one interview?”
Tony laughed.
She added a good sense of humor to his growing list of desirable attributes.
“The station did consider quite a few possibilities, but we decided you were one of the best candidates.”
“What happened, everyone else turned you down?” Shevaughn smiled.
“To be honest, yes.”
“Honesty in a reporter? How refreshing.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things, but that’s a first. Refreshing, huh? I think I like that!”
Just like that, the interview was on. She told him about her life and background. Things were going so smoothly, she hardly recognized that an entire hour had passed. That’s when her stomach growled so loud, they both laughed.
“Is something wrong,” he asked.
“No, I apologize. When you arrived, I was just about to order out and then we started talking and well, here I am or should I say, here we are.”
“Well, what did you have in mind? Because I never want to be known for being the one who kept you away from lunch.”
“Thoughtful, too! I’m leaning toward Chinese.”
“Fine with me,” he agreed. “But hey, no take out. I know a place just a few blocks away that makes the best sesame beef you have ever tasted.”
“That’s your opinion. I’ll reserve mine until after the meal,” she brashly responded.
As they walked the five blocks to China Garden, Shevaughn was wondering what was happening to her. First the stranger last night and now Tony. What the hell am I thinking? She had never had a relationship with a White man before, never even considered them romantically. In the 80’s, it was customary to stick to your own kind. People just didn’t approve of interracial relationships.
Now, here she was, walking with this hunk of a White man! Her luck (and obviously her taste in men) was definitely changing. Life was full of surprises.
Butterflies of apprehension fluttered in her stomach, almost replacing her hunger.
__♥__
Tony resisted the urge to take her hand. Hell, they had just met! It was silly, but his attraction was real.
From the moment they first met, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He guessed she was about 5’6” or 5’7” and built like a brick house. His mind had no problem calculating her dimensions. To his expert eye, she was about 36-30-38. She had a deep Godiva chocolate complexion, wide, dark brown doe eyes and full lips, the kind that made men want to cry. She was one hell of an attractive woman. He couldn’t ignore the fact that she was Black. He knew that people would consider anything between them taboo. Though he thought he believed in equality, dating a Black woman hadn’t been part of his dating history. All of a sudden, he was wondering why not.
They arrived at the restaurant, just missing the lunchtime crowd and the host seated them in a booth at the back. The lighting was low, and as far as Tony was concerned, a tad bit sexy. Even though he appreciated the atmosphere, this was supposed to be about work. Tony ordered a scotch and water and instantly regretted it when Shevaughn refused a cocktail because she was on duty. Mistake number one.
While he waited for the waiter to bring his drink, he began drumming the table with his fingers. Shevaughn shot him a look of annoyance. Mistake number two.
Tony took a sip of his drink and looked at a fish tank with one large, single fish that he’d spotted when they first walked in. He needed to be on safer ground.
“He needs a girlfriend,” he stated, nodding towards the fish tank.
“Excuse me?”
“The fish…” he pointed. “He needs a girlfriend.”
“The fish? Why do you say that?”
“Look at him, all alone in that tank. He needs someone to take care of him.”
“Oh. So does he need a mate or a maid?”
“Both.”
“So that’s what a girlfriend means to you?”
“Hold on, I wasn’t talking about me.”
“No?”
“You read too much into that.”
“Did I?”
“Okay, let’s just say the poor fish needs a companion.”
“He may be very happy by himself.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?
“Happy by yourself?”
“What makes you think I’m alone?”
“No wedding ring, no picture of a man in your office…”
“My, aren’t we the detective.”
Her attitude showed in her voice.
“Hey, no big deal. I’m not married either.”
“Is that a proposal?”
The scotch went down the wrong pipe and Tony choked, loudly.
“I didn’t realize the thought would be so upsetting.”
“No, no, I swear, I just choked.”
“Your timing was perfect.”
“Well, I can see you’re never going to believe me.”
“That you just happened to choke when I mentioned marriage? Like I may be considering it…, with you? You’re one egotistical idiot, aren’t you?”
“Now, don’t take it that way, it wasn’t like that.”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“Okay, okay, can we start over? Hi, I’m Tony O’Brien of NBS News.”
“Is that your way of calling a truce?”
“Please.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He couldn’t hide the look of disappointment on his face.
“Truce,” she said smiling, raising her water glass. “I was just joking earlier, boy, are you sensitive.”
Good, she has a sense of humor. This woman was winning him over by the minute.
Tony was ready to dig deeper into her psyche, find out all he could about Miss Shevaughn Robinson, when the waiter interrupted with two piping hot platters of food.
He was pleased to see her use the chopsticks correctly and when she noticed him watching her, he smiled.
“Mother believed I should know a little of everything, you know jack-of-all-trades. So I got chopstick lessons when I was around nine.”
“Funny, my Mom did the same for me!”
Tony thought about his mother and her reaction to this new development in his life. They had never discussed their views on interracial relationships, but he knew she worried about him dating Ellen, who happened to be Jewish. It was somehow against her religion. He hadn’t told her about his dating Natalie, a Latina and at least she was Catholic! He rationalized it by telling himself you never tell your Mom everyone you’ve slept with. Now, look at him, actually thinking about a Black woman. God, he hoped his Mom didn’t give him a hard time about it.
He then wondered what else he and Shevaughn had in common. His instincts told him there would be a lot more. He hoped he was right. Tony found that he wanted to know everything about her and vowed to make this assignment last as long as possible.
He refused to let the intensity of his feelings show and quietly began eating his meal. The sesame beef was the best he’d ever tasted, but he found it couldn’t keep his mind off her. He wondered what she was thinking.
__♥__
Shevaughn pretended to be into the meal, but kept sneaking quick glances at the handsome man across from her. This was all so new. She has always interacted well with White folks. Being in the system had given her more contact with them than most Blacks her age. She’d never felt so interested, so drawn. It was scary, but she had to admit, it was a little exciting.
Basking in their own reflections, they finished their meal in silence, oddly comfortable just being in each other’s presence.
Do you believe you were born a leader?
Author: Nanette M. Buchanan
ISBN:13 978-0-9793883-0-9
10 0-9793883-0-9
Publisher: I Pen Books/Nanette M. Buchanan
Contact: ipendesigns@gmail.com
www.ipendesigns.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/ipendesigns
Chapter 1
The phone rang. It was early. The April mornings were still chilly and the phone beside the bed roused Darrell Mince from his deep slumber. He had slept under the quilt and left the windows open. The street was quiet, he noted, the dawn’s light was making only a bleak attempt to crowd in through his blinds. It was not the time for phone calls, at least not as a start for a Saturday morning. On weekends, away from his desk, away from crunching numbers for faceless clients, away from the constant conference calls allotted to his position as a top CPA at Sheldon Finance, sleep was sacred. But the ringing was insistent, and Rell lunged at the receiver, exposing only his arm to the chilled air.
“Yes?” he croaked.
“Mr. Darrell Quincy Mince?”
The voice had a professional quality, detached, impersonal, and no one had called him Darrell since he was six-years-old.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Good morning, Mr. Mince. My name is Stan Simpson. I apologize for calling you so early on a Saturday. Did I wake you?”
“You did in fact”, he said, sorting it out. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it.”
Ignoring the man’s protests, Rell slammed the receiver back in the cradle. His arm was just getting warm again under the quilt when the phone rang again. He swore and picked it up on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Mince, it’s Stan Simpson again. Please don’t hang up. I’m not a salesman. I’m an attorney.”
Rell turned over; the remnants of his dreams lifting like fog.
“Ok, you’ve got my attention. What do you want?”
“Well sir, we haven’t heard from you regarding your father’s requests and I’m simply calling to make sure you sign and return the paperwork we sent you. No later than Wednesday if possible.”
He paused and drew a rehearsed breath to signal concern.
“And. Mr. Mince, I’m quite sorry for your loss.”
Rell struggled to sit up fully, the importance of the words weighing him down.
“What loss, Mr. Simpson?”
There was a long silence.
“Didn’t you get our certified mail?”
“I was away.”
There was a stack of mail on his kitchen table, left there after he’d come in late the night before from the airport, bills unopened, personal letters unread. He’d planned on making a morning of it over breakfast.
“And has no one told you?”
Mr. Simpson spoke slowly, tentatively. The way one would speak to a child who had just lost his dog.
“Look, I haven’t talked to my father in quite some time,” replied Rell. “Can we get on with it?”
“Mr. Mince, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your father passed away last week.”
Rell was more than stunned. He hadn’t heard from any family members in the past week. He had let them know he would be away on business but they could have contacted him by phone. Mr. Simpson allowed the pause in the conversation realizing the news had left Rell at a lost for words.
“Mr. Simpson, I must apologize for my rudeness when you called. I had no idea of the importance of the call.”
“Certainly, the number is on the letter introducing myself and the need for your attention to the enclosed papers. I will wait to hear from you.”
“Sir, I will definitely call you. I will need time to confer with my family.”
“Of course, shall we say we will speak shortly after the funeral?”
“Yes, unless of course I have questions before hand.”
“Yes, that is understood. Again, Mr. Mince I’m sorry for your loss, your father was a good friend of mine. I hope to speak with you soon.”
“You will, Mr. Simpson. Thank you for the call.”Rell got out of bed, now fully awake he noticed the chilled air more. He pulled down the bedroom windows and put his bare feet into his slippers. The bathroom was giving him a wake up call which delayed his intentions of opening the mail right away. Rell paused while in the bathroom and gave more thought to his father’s last thoughts of his son not visiting him at the hospital. Rell washed the morning sleep from his eyes and rinsed his mouth with mouthwash. He realized he was only prolonging opening the mail and wiped the tears that welled in his eye.
The letter was addressed, “Mr. D. Quincy Mince”, knowing what the envelope contained Rell hesitated and took a deep breath before opening it. Rell read the letter over slowly wondering with each word why he hadn’t been called. He laid the letter on the kitchen table and held his head between his hands. Rell had never thought about losing either of his parents. The letter gave little details and mentioned only that it was imperative for him to contact the Office of Simpson & Simon Attorney’s At Law. The papers requested his current contact information and explained that he was named in his father’s will as the executor of his estate. If Rell had any objections there were directions and more forms for him to fill out. In reading the papers he realized they were mailed while his father was in his final days. Rell’s father, Derek Quinton Mince, better known as D.Q., had always hinted toward Rell taking his place one day, but Rell never thought about his death. Rell realized he needed to talk to his mother, his grandmother, or someone who could explain why no one called him. As he reached for the phone, it rang.
Rell answered, “Hello”, trying not to sound as depressed as he felt.
“Baby what’s wrong? You must have gotten the news.”
It was his mother, Nikki. She sounded as though she had been crying.
“Ma, you knew? You knew dad was sick? You knew he died?”
“Rell I,” sobbed his mother. “I got a letter from an attorney today.”
Rell cut her off saying, “Dad died from respiratory failure after a long hospital stay. Are you saying you didn’t know he was in the hospital?”
Nikki thought it best not to mention that she did go to the hospital two days before D.Q. died. She knew that would only spark an argument with her son and she wanted him to come home without the bad feelings coming between them again. Since his move to Maryland they had rekindled the relationship that had been lost. She had hoped D.Q. would have gotten better and then she would have coaxed Rell into visiting him in the hospital. She couldn’t tell him that his father had been sick for at least three months off and on or that this was his second hospital stay.
“Yes, you got the same letter?” Nikki questioned, ignoring his question about D.Q.’s hospital stay.
“What else did your letter say?”
“I guess it’s the same as yours.” Rell wasn’t interested in discussing attorney’s letter. He wanted to know why no one contacted him.
“Why didn’t we know he was sick? Why didn’t Nana call us? Mama, both you and Nana had my number to call if anything came up. Why didn’t you call me?”
Rell was feeling the pain of his father’s death fully now. Tears began to run down his cheeks. He didn’t know if he could have handled the information being away but it hurt him deeply that he wasn’t by his father’s side. The distance he felt now was more than the pain of their distant relationship. Rell hurt now knowing it was a relationship that was permanently lost.
“I don’t know baby, but I did call Nana after I got this letter. She said he died three days ago and no arrangements have been made. I guess she is waiting for your Uncle and Aunt to fly in from Detroit to help her with the arrangements. Rell, your grandmother said she wanted you home too.”
Nikki hadn’t called him sooner because she was in shock. She promised Nana she would call Rell right after she knew of his death. That was yesterday, her letter from the attorney’s office brought her to reality. She knew if she didn’t call him Nana would.
“So does this lawyer. This letter says nothing from his will or estate can be released without my signature. I was named executor of all his possessions. What was Dad thinking? We haven’t talked for at least a year.”
Rell let the words fade to a mumble regretting to have to admit that he and the only man he loved had a wedge between them. Somehow now it seemed as though he built the wedge and his father just gave him the space he needed.
“Rell, Rell”, his mother repeated softly, “You are coming home aren’t you? I need you by my side for this Rell, come home baby please.”
Since Darrell’s move to Maryland, Nikki had not seen him long enough to consider it a stay. Even when he visited, he would only stop in for a day and it was always on his way back home. Darrell’s thoughts drifted back two years to what led him to leave the home he knew in Richmond, Virginia and move to his new home in College Park, Maryland.
17 to Life: A Black Boy Memoir
BOOK COVER/AUTHOR
Title: 17 to Life: A Black Boy Memoir (On Accepting Love, Defining the Self & Living Free)
Author: Oronde Ash
Publisher: TBD… Anyone?
Publication Date: Fall 2008 (Full manuscript completed)
ISBN: In process
Contact: bygINCpresents@live.com
Website: www.orondeash.com
Blog: www.bygpowis.blogspot.com
Youtube: www.youtube.com/bygINCpresents
CHAPTER 1 –THE NEW IMMIGRANT
“Stay… Don’t go anywhere.”
Auntie Sonja would repeat that to my sister Annie and me every time we went to her job at Lennox Hospital in the Bronx, NY. She wasn’t being mean. I knew that a nine-year-old boy and his eight-year-old sister weren’t supposed to be locked in the nurse’s changing room for five hours at a time. But there we were, Annie and I fresh from the island of St Vincent, wide-eyed and ready for The States.
Island children with relatives in The States sleep sound and dream of living there. The States was a direct line to salvation St. Vincent would never provide. Those with a connection to that line were operators to my friends and me. With stories of material excess and opportunity island life limits altogether, the fortunate sons and daughters of St. Vincent –those with money, influence, government jobs or who attended the same Anglican Church I did– opened eyes to human capital. If someone had relatives, friends or an enemy in The States, they were angels back home. Operators like me gave away old clothes or excess food to starving, hungry, naked children in town. My grandmother, uncle and aunt in New Jersey would send more t-shirts, more books, more toys at Christmas, so it was no big deal. It wasn’t just the material. Ever since I was a child, Auntie Sonja and my grandmother had been granting me access to a human economy most of my friends were too poor to afford. And I loved them for that.
“Don’t do anything, you two.”
Auntie Sonja would drop by the lockers every few hours bringing sandwiches and tiny boxes of apple juice. “You’re really not supposed to be here,” she’d remind me. My mother told me that after coming to Brooklyn in the early 1970s, Sonja was on tract to become a head nurse. I didn’t want to get my aunt fired, so I stared at the bland walls or fell asleep on the long, wooden benches in the locker room. After two or three trips to the Bronx, fifteen hours in the locker room, I, naturally, wanted to see the beeping machines, talk to the doctors about what they were doing or even walk around Lennox Avenue. When we came up the subway it reminded me of a colorful island market. Music was playing, people walking and talking. I remember my mother took me to see the movie Beat Street and saying, “That’s where you aunt works,” when a Bronx hospital came on screen. I remembered the human movement in that movie –the locking, popping, rhythmic release. And it was all there outside the hospital door.
Whatever was around Lennox Hospital might as well have been on Mars because I was in quarantine. In three weeks, school was starting in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, so Annie and I had to be registered. That meant riding the train five hours round-trip to get prodded and poked with needles so we wouldn’t infect American kids with our island diseases. I wasn’t sick when we first got to New Jersey. It was late summer. The sun didn’t set until eight o’clock. That amazed me. In St. Vincent, it got dark at six thirty every night. Only The States could figure out a way to afford more sunlight for kids to play. Inside the house was another story.
In the two-story, three-bedroom house on Everts Avenue, I’d overhear cousins Gerry and Carla complain about the little privacy they had now that Annie and I shared their rooms. Gerry was okay. We shared a bed and wrestled, especially after watching Hulk Hogan, Big John Stud and the Junkyard Dog on TV. Most days if he wasn’t in Auntie Sonja’s rooms watching TV, he rode his bike to play with his friends while I stayed on Everts Ave and juggled a soccer ball. Still, Gerry did introduce me to rap music. He had pictures of Curtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run DMC and other rappers in Word-Up magazine plastered all over his room. I didn’t get rap. To me, the human beat box was glorified spitting. The only good thing about the music was break dancing, which Gerry and I sometimes did. He would put me on his head like a helicopter blade and spin around until I fell on the bed. Those days were fun.
As for cousin Carla, she was all right. She and Annie looked like they were having fun playing with their dolls or watching cartoons like Rainbow Bright or Gem. She sometimes wrestled with Gerry and me so I guess she wasn’t that much of a girl.
Annie and I, Auntie Sonja, Gerry, Carla, Grandma, and for days at a time, my mom shared the house. About a month after arriving, Auntie Sonja found my mother a live-in job as a nanny to some white kids a few towns away so she was rarely there. Also, to avoid the commute between New York and New Jersey, Auntie Sonja slept with relatives in Brooklyn. Some weeks she’d be gone from Sunday through Thursday. So she was hardly there either. That didn’t stop her from constantly working on the house.
From our first weeks in The States, the house was growing. Auntie Sonja wanted a deck in the back so she had one built. Looking back, I think the house was a marker for my aunt’s independence. She came from a no-name island, the first one in the family to leave and make it. She helped her other siblings establish themselves in Canada, Brooklyn and New Jersey. They all were doing well. She had been married, divorced, raised two kids on her own. She even brought Grandma in to take care of her kids. For all her years in The States, she had worked to establish something uniquely hers. I’m sure to her construction meant change for the better. To a nine-year-old soccer-loving boy, dust in the air and two-by-fours in the backyard meant less room to play. Still, all sides of the house, except the one near the street, were reserved for Grandma’s garden. She planted tomatoes, okra and all manner of herbs and spices. When I kicked my soccer ball into her cabbage patch or fell on her mint leaves, I’d tiptoe around the garden, careful to rub away my shoe prints on the way out. Days when I broke her tomato stems, I felt she disliked me for messing up her stuff.
Next to the house, a gray Chevy Nova sat in the gravel driveway. The panels between the front and back tires were rusting. Some days I’d sit in the driver’s seat and pretend to drive around Scotch Plains. None of the women had a driver’s license so we walked everywhere. On the three or four-mile walk to Westfield to catch the New Jersey Transit train to Newark, onto the Path Train to New York City, we would pass elegant houses more together than Auntie Sonja’s fixer-upper. Even if they were smaller, to me the houses appeared bigger. The front yards were perfectly cut, not like our feeble attempt at a lawn, with the massive Christmas tree taking up most of the play space. Sometimes, a man would ride a little tractor across his yard. He’d smile and wave, we’d wave back. There were BMX bikes or remote control cars sprawled in the driveways, tempting, teasing, reminding me of all I didn’t have in The States.
I didn’t have a bike. In St. Vincent, I learned to ride my neighbor’s bike in thirty minutes. The kid was two years younger than me so his bike was uncomfortable. Still, his mom would bribe me into running errands by promising I could take the bike. One or two kids in town had a bike so I was a big deal when I rode one. Cousin Gerry had a bike, but it was too high. He was thirteen. I was nine. Even Carla, at eight, had her own little pink bike with a flower basket and bell on the handlebar. But I couldn’t be seen riding a girl’s bike now, could I? A Caribbean boy still had his pride.
I wanted a lot of things I began to see in The States. GI Joe action figures, a He-Man sword, a remote control car, Transformers, a football. I wanted to eat potato chips, hamburgers, Domino’s pizza or grilled hot dogs with the black lines on them like in the commercials. Grandma wasn’t crazy about junk food. We ate as healthy as the doctor said she had to.
The broccoli and cauliflower in her soups didn’t have the tastes I was used to. Even the yams, carrots, and potatoes lost their goodness. America seemed to rob the flavor in them. I detested Grandma for trying to force-feed me all that green crap. Once school began, and the lunchroom at Evergreen Elementary was ripe with juju beads, jellybeans, candy bars, lollipops, fruit roll-ups and talk of lobster and steak for dinner, I detested Grandma even more. We never ate any of that stuff. Couldn’t there be some variety in our diet? Didn’t she notice how skinny I was compared to everybody else in America? Pizza made people bigger. I picked up something on TV about complex starches and carbohydrates. They said it was healthy. Hadn’t she heard?
Television was teaching me a lot. We didn’t have TV in Barrouallie (barrow-LEE) –my island hometown. The older people told me the mountains surrounding our valley blocked the TV waves. St. Vincent offered a lot to look at. In America, I couldn’t see much because no one ever went anywhere. Television became my window to The States. Four were in the house. The biggest was in the family room –but nobody even went in the family room. Hard plastic covered the velvet sofas, making it uncomfortable for any family member. A twelve-inch set was in the kitchen –Grandma watched that one all day– another was in Auntie Sonja’s room and a nine-inch, black and white set with rabbit ears was in the basement. After school, Gerry controlled the set in Auntie Sonja’s room. He’d watch Good Times and Video Music Box for an hour and a half. He never watched the cartoons I liked, so I usually went to the basement if Carla and Annie hadn’t beaten me to it.
The basement was dark and dank, the floor tiled, with no rugs or carpets. It got miserably cold even in early fall. The changing seasons were something I had to get used to. I had arrived in the heat of summer with my mother and sister. The States was green. Gardens were growing. Our little clan was finally joining the bigger Ash family. I met the aunt and grandmother who had given me so much, the cousins who had sent me their children’s books and spare clothes. Then fall came, with it the fear of fitting into a new school, my mother not being around, my sister playing with her new friends, Gerry with his buddies, me and the cold basement. Even the heat didn’t want to stay down there. Add to that my gnawing fear of being alone in the dark –too many stories from home about jumbees and black magic– and I swear I’d hear voices talking behind me. It took a lot of my nine year-old nerves to stay but the reward was worth it. GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man, Diff’rent Strokes, Benson. I got what I wanted. All I had to do was put up with minor problems like cold feet and fear.
When I didn’t feel like staying in the basement, I’d shuffle back and forth between Gerry’s TV and Grandma’s. There wasn’t much variety in her viewing. She was addicted to one network all day long: ABC. Monday Night Football was the only good part of the ordeal. Grandma didn’t know anything about football –except for the Superbowl, which we all watched in the family room– but she was loyal to ABC, so she watched MNF anyway. I had fallen in love with American football, especially the college game. I never heard voices in the basement on Saturday afternoons nor was I hungry or upset. Something else was going on down there: I learned.
Football taught me American geography and a bit of the country’s personality. Oklahoma and Barry Switzer were in the Southwest Conference, next to, but not in the same league as LSU. The Crimson Tide hated their SEC rivals at Auburn, even though the Tigers had an incredible runner named Bo Jackson –who I kept hearing about over and over again. Army vs. Navy was the biggest game of the year, except any time Notre Dame played a ranked team. At Penn State, Pitt, Ohio and other Northern schools, they ran the ball straight ahead because the fields got too hard for running backs to change directions in late fall. In the SWAC and SEC they liked the option while in the WAC and PAC-10 they threw the ball because the weather was always nice in California.
To be a quarterback you had to be at least 6’2”, 180-200 lbs. and white. Runners and receivers were black, tight ends and offensive linemen –usually the smartest guys on the team, according to the Chevrolet Scholar-Athlete Award announced at halftime– were white. Linebackers were black, except for middle linebackers, who were usually white, along with their head coaches.
Saturday afternoon football, specifically Notre Dame Football, made me want to go to college and experience the excitement. (South Bend sounded so much like its own glorious country; it would be another year until I accepted that it was an actual town in Indiana.) I wanted to see Touchdown Jesus with my own eyes. “All you have to do is get a soccer scholarship,” I voice would offer. That’s the way all the black kids did it in the movies I saw.
On TV, the black kid was always the go-to receiver or running back. He never got the blond-haired, blue-eyed head cheerleader or even said much on screen, but it was obvious he was going to college on a scholarship. I saw my tract before me. Scotch Plains was a soccer-obsessed town. I was shocked to see the level of interest for my island game. Maybe God was looking out for me? Why did bless me with athletic ability? Why send me to a town where the high school team had been state champs in soccer two years in a row? I was sure God had a plan for me. I had talked to Him every night since I could remember. My first ambition in life was to become a pastor in the Anglican Church. Even though my faith was waning in America, I still accepted the fact that God worked miracles for those who abided by His rules.
Bob Ross, the gym teacher at Evergreen Elementary, saw me play soccer and immediately recommended me to one of his softball buddies, Joe McEvoy. Mr. McEvoy called Grandma and she had Gerry take me to the middle school fields one Saturday morning. There were ten or twenty games going on at once. Parents were clapping and yelling, balls flying all over the place. The fields were actually green grass instead of dirt patches made by goats grazing on them all day. There was no pathway cutting diagonally across any field from years of people walking through it –like in Barrouallie. There were no kid’s teams back home. We played in the streets, on the beach or in the park after the older guys were done. Soccer was organized in Scotch Plains.
Gerry found Mr. McEvoy who gave me an orange shirt and sent me to kick around with the other boys in orange shirts. We won that day. Saturdays with the McEvoy family introduced me to the pleasures of the American spirit. I had gotten to know them well during the course of our undefeated, championship run.
There was Joe –who was on the team with me– his sister Jennifer, three years older and mom and dad; the perfect American family. They had a pool, cable TV, a basketball hoop (with a net), all kinds of balls and toys in the garage. Joe’s room was full of posters of athletes, actors, comic book heroes. His carpet –in his room– was strewn with baseball cards, action figures, new clothes. He even had his own TV. Mrs. McEvoy asked him what he wanted to eat and she promptly made it. When they went shopping, Joe got to pick out his favorite cereal or candy. Most importantly to me, the family talked. “We never do that in Auntie Sonja’s house,” I thought.
Whenever I was around the McEvoys there was never a raised voice. Of course, that could have all been for show but I didn’t care to know reality then. Just like on TV, I was living with the perfect American family. I was accepted. I’m sure they knew I knew I didn’t belong in their house but we played the acceptance game every weekend. For once in all my time in The States, I felt like an American, alive with all the material excesses island lore swore was commonplace here. I felt cared for, almost complete. Mrs. McEvoy spoke softly, listened and catered to my needs. She knew what this country was all about.
The teammates I interacted with on the weekends had input in their lives. They were being prepared for an America that wanted people who knew what they wanted; prepared to participate in a society of independent thinkers. Island life prepared kids to be thankful for what little they got. In St. Vincent, kids were seen and seldom heard. In America, kids talked. I wanted to talk but I couldn’t fashion the words. I had never practiced this new, American way of living in the world.
There were issues on my mind. New stimuli flashed questions and comments across my senses but it seemed impolite for a fourth grader to talk to adults in Auntie Sonja’s house so I never posed questions. It was frustrating not being able to explore or articulated my own ideas. I would feel myself bubbling and knew something was itching to come out.
One day I playfully slapped a classmate named Chuck across the face. Chuck and I had just gotten in a scruff on the football field because he was kicking and tripping instead of tackling. That wasn’t fair. Rules were rules. On the steps leading into the building we started tugging at each other and soon began swinging wildly. We both got sent to the principal’s office. Grandma gave me a whipping when I got home that day. I was sure she didn’t like me.
There were other incidents where it seemed I was trying to articulate some silent emotion. One Sunday morning, I didn’t feel like going to church. It had nothing to do with the Baptist service, the preaching style, or anyone in the congregation. I liked church. I had always liked church. I felt special when I answered Bible questions the other kids didn’t know.
It was going to be a hot day and I knew I would pass out before the two-hour service was up. Grandma was standing in the front doorway ushering me, Annie, Carla and Gerry. I was sick of being buttoned up. My shirt and the tie, both hand-me-downs, were too big or too tight. Back home, I was the one giving clothes away. Moreover, my white teammates wore jeans and sneakers to their church. Why did I have to dress up to talk to the same God? Not fair.
“I don’t want to go to church,” I mumbled. Grandma wasn’t trying to hear me. As we got to the bottom of the steps, thinking she was out of earshot, I turned to Annie and said, “I hate her.” Grandma opened the door, walked down the three steps, grabbed me by the arm and slapped me across the face.
“You must learn some manners,” she said. “Now, go to church.”
More signs of frustration with the house began appearing. The neighbor’s apple tree hung into Auntie Sonja’s front yard. Especially in late fall, apples would drop off and rot on her driveway. Every day I saw worms crawling out of the apples. Annie and I tasted blood in the apple juice Auntie Sonja would buy. We were the only ones in the house who tasted the blood. We figured the rest were just used to it. To this day, I don’t know why my sister and I both tasted blood in the apple juice –but we did. She and I would dump our full glasses into the sink when nobody was looking. The apple juice tasted fine at my white friend’s houses? I wondered why that was.
For the most part, I kept calm in the house. Playing soccer and spending some Saturday afternoons –or weekends, if we had a tournament– with the McEvoy family provided needed respite. No matter how much I smiled, even after Mr. McEvoy took Joe and me to the Meadowlands to watch the Kareem, Magic and the Lakers play the Nets, I was not happy. I didn’t know what happiness was supposed to mean to me but I knew I was not feeling it.
Happiness used to be so simple. If my father gave me a quarter, I was happy. If my mother said I could go to the beach in the morning with my neighbor Jerry, I was happy. If I ate a mango, bought roasted peanuts, licked an emptying jar of peanut butter, watched a kung-fu movie at the theater, rode a bicycle, ate two spoonfuls of Klim powdered milk and Milo, I was happy. The rent for happiness had gone up in The States and I couldn’t pay. The Ashes were too poor on ideas about how to get the most from why and how we were living.
“I’m cold,” a whimper inside would tell me. I had heard that same voice before in St. Vincent when I was happy. In The States he wanted to speak but had trouble being heard. “I’m not dumb,” the voice would promise me. “I want loud. I have to come out.” One day he did.
Maybe I had enough of the classroom walls at Evergreen? In Barrouallie, the school didn’t have inner walls. The building was one open space like a warehouse. I could look over and see all my friends in the next class or hear them when they talked. There was a collective energy feeding me all day.
Maybe it was longing for island warmth? Every day I woke up in this new state and it got colder and colder. The leaves outside –green when I got here, like leaves are supposed to be– were turning orange and purple and red. The trees were dying –the blood rushing to the leaves before they fell and got trampled on the ground. All the kids at Evergreen trampled on the leaves and laughed as they squashed the life out of them. Then the snow fell and covered up the death.
It was close to Christmas. I hadn’t spoken to or written to my island buddies since I arrived in Scotch Plains. I cut my dad and all my godfathers off because TV taught me they were inconsiderate fools. The Just Say No to Drugs campaign opened my eyes to the idiots my dad had surrounded me with. On the island, I saw his friends and him smoking ganja when we hung out. Weed was no big deal. My father was in his mid twenties when I was born, and a Rastafarian to boot. All his friends were the same age and into Rasta as well. From the age of five or six, his friends would let me roll joints and smoke with them. I was one of the fellas. Surely, they must have known what was best for me?
But one of the commercials on TV warned that smoking marijuana killed brain cells. I figured the reason I was getting C’s and D’s on my report card was because my father killed my brain cells. I surmised that ganja was the reason I was forgetting my friends and the things we used to do, why I feel alone and paranoid, why my brain refused to work like it used to. I never reasoned that island memories were falling back because I was adjusting to a completely different culture. Old St. Vincent had to make way for new America. The summer comforts of my life were being swept under the snow and melting away. I blamed my dad for my psychic limbo and summarily cut him out of my life.
It’s sad to think about the sudden, assuredness of my decision. In only six months, I had tuned against the man I loved above all else –the man I ran to when my mother and her new boyfriend tried to hurt each other in front of the town and only succeeded in embarrassing me –the man who spent hours helping me develop my soccer skills. My father bought me my first Bible. He talked to me about God in a human way, and not the fire and brimstone terror of the pastor’s pulpit predictions. (I didn’t speak to my father until years later. “He can’t be the one who made you dumb,” I’d hear a voice whisper. But I didn’t hear him. I was losing the connection.)
Maybe all this uncertainty caused me to erupt that Wednesday afternoon in school? Maybe I was a brat who didn’t get his way one day and threw a tantrum? Whatever the reason, I snapped.
The class had just returned from lunch and we had our usual fifteen minutes of free time to draw, read, write, whatever. I wanted to practice typing on the computer but somebody beat me to it. I was upset. I wandered over to the window and stared outside, not trying to think of anything in particular. Soon I started feeling sad and kept staring out the window even after Mrs. DiPeppi called me back to my seat.
That day, I hated life. I hated the snow, the cold; I hated my family, myself. I hated America for not being real. I hated not knowing anything or having anyone. I hated this state.
I didn’t laugh the way I used to on the island. I was special there. I missed being a special boy, nurtured by a town that always seemed to look out for me.
I missed me.
That Wednesday afternoon, I decided to end the hours holding anxiety and frustration inside. Someone had to feel the wrath of a boy slowly going wrong.
“If you’re good, we’ll watch Slim Goodbody today instead of Friday,” Mrs. DiPeppi told her fourth grade class.
I didn’t give a damn about Slim Goodbody. His Lycra suit with a painting of the human organs all over was something he could remove when the camera was off. I had to live in my crazy, confused black skin every minute of the day. I was a Slim Nobody from nowhere anybody cared about. I didn’t wear myself on the outside like the American kids seemed to do. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to in this new place. Nobody saw the real me. Nobody saw the volcano. Nobody felt the hot magma burning away. But they would.
“I HATE YOU ALL! I HATE YOU ALL!” I wrote on a blackboard at the back of the room. Then I wrote the names of all the kids in the class. They were shocked by what they saw. Mrs. DiPeppi calmed the class down quickly and came to where I was.
“What’s wrong, Oronde?” she asked. Hadn’t she seen?
“I HATE YOU ALL! I HATE YOU ALL!” I said to her.
She tried to get me to go back to my seat at the front of the room, but it wasn’t her day. The day was for me to be with the voice I was hearing inside. The day was for me to listen to his pain again and again. I sat at the back of the room, facing the dying world outside. I was cold. I wanted to go home.
Suddenly Single (Chapter 1)
Book Title: Suddenly Single
Author: Shana Johnson Burton
ISBN-13: 978-1-60162-953-1
ISBN-10: 1-60162-953-2
Publisher: Urban Christian
Contact: jatice@hotmail.com
www.shanaburton.com
www.urbanchristianonline.net
www.myspace.com/shanajburton
Chapter 1
His nervous phone call the night before the wedding should have been a warning. But between the beautician threatening to burn her with the curling iron if she didn’t keep her head still, her best friend rattling off the “still-to-do” list, and her mother complaining because her fiancé’s family served fried chicken at the rehearsal dinner instead of having it catered, Vashti Hunter just didn’t detect the worried quiver in his voice. She assumed that Kedrick’s telling her that the last thing that he’d ever want to do is hurt her and his promise to always love her was just his way of reassuring her of his commitment to their pending marriage. Before Vashti could delve any deeper, her mother snatched the telephone out of her hand, informing Kedrick that Vashti would call him back tomorrow and to be on time for the wedding pictures.
The next morning, Vashti thought that it was strange that Kedrick hadn’t called to wish her a happy wedding day, and she was a little unnerved when she couldn’t reach him at home or on his cell phone. Dismissing the apprehension that churned in her stomach, she simply concluded that, like her, he had a lot of errands to run before the wedding and would call her as soon as things settled down.
By noon, she still hadn’t heard from him but remembered that he had relatives flying in from New York that he had to meet at the airport. Vashti was certain that he’d call before the limousine arrived to transport her and her family to the church.
Shortly after two o’clock, Vashti was at the church being primped and primed for wedding pictures, but there was still no sign of Kedrick. She wasn’t worried—everyone knew that Kedrick was an advocate of CP time. Perhaps he was still recovering from his bachelor party. Vashti made a mental note to question him about it later.
By 2:45, everyone rationalized that Kedrick must had gotten the time confused and thought that he had to be at the church by three o’clock, not two, since the wedding wasn’t set to start until four. Twenty minutes later, Vashti sneaked away to call the hospital to see if anyone had come in from having an accident. None of the patients registered matched his name or description. Then she called his friends to see if they’d seen or heard from him. None of them had.
Doubts were starting to creep in, but she was determined to stay positive. Kedrick loved her and that was all that mattered. He would be there—he had to be! Besides, grooms were notorious for having cold feet before the wedding. She eased her mind by recalling her college roommate’s wedding. The groom zoomed in at the last minute after getting over his pre-wedding jitters, and then the two were happily married. It was only a quarter until four; if he came within the next fifteen minutes, no one outside of the family would even know that he’d been late.
Around 4:15, murmurs from restless attendants echoed throughout the sanctuary while the bridesmaids exchanged nervous glances that revealed what everyone was thinking.
By 4:40, Vashti’s mother was hastily drafting a speech to notify the guest that the wedding was being postponed, but Vashti insisted that she wait– Kedrick was going to march through the door at any second.
At 5:00, the Hunter family began apologizing to their family members and friends as they filed out of the church, reassuring them that all gifts would be returned and thanking them for their support.
At 5:30, they found Vashti squatting on the floor in her wedding dress inside of Kedrick’s now empty apartment, drowning in her tears. Her father picked her up and cradled her in his arms the way he used to do when she was a child. Back then, those strong limbs were a comfort to her; now, she resented them for being necessary.
By 6:03, Vashti was back at her house– the one that she was to share with Kedrick– crossing the threshold in her father’s arms instead of her husband’s. Her parents offered to stay with her, but she insisted on being left alone. Walking to her room to crawl into bed and remain there for eternity, Vashti caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror. She turned to look at it, wanting to see the future Mrs. Kedrick Wright one last time. She stood there, staring at this woman standing in the exquisite strapless Vera Wang knock-off gown that she practically had to crack a rib to squeeze into. Her tiara veil sparkled as the evening sunlight shone down on it. The beautiful June afternoon seemed to be making a mockery of the torment she was feeling inside.
She looked down at her $400 Jimmy Choo shoes that gave her 5’4 inch frame a much needed boost and at her great-grandmother’s pearl necklace that dangled from her neck. She got one last glance at the flawless nails and the impeccable hairdo, upswept and weaved in for the occasion, her caramel-colored skin that had been buffed and mud-wrapped, and her almond-shaped to eyes to which fake eye lashes had been adhered to plump up her own thin lashes. She took one last look at the woman who was supposed to marry the love of her life, the man that she’d spent the last five years loving and for whom she was willing to sacrifice her size three figure for in order to have his babies, and cried.
Shadows of the Heart (avail. Aug 1,2008)
By: Lord’Williams
Published by:
Lord’Williams Publishing Groups
ISBN 10: 0-9818938–0-5
ISBN 13: 978-0-9818938-0-8
Chapter 1
He finished the final touches on the track he’d just sung, his own rendition of “One Less Bell,” originally performed by The Fifth Dimension, back in the early seventies. The tracks from his tears dried moments after he stepped out of the sound booth. He did this remake for no one in particular but himself, and his lonesome heart. He thought it would make great background music for his pity party, but the tears and sorrowful heart have left him thoughtless. Before his mind went voided, he thought about a lot of things—like in the last few weeks, after Yvonne, his wife, made her departure from their residence.
She took little with her that night. She was too choked-up and upset to stay under the same roof with him any longer than she had to. Quiet as it was kept, she had thought about leaving him so many times, for a long time, but the timing was never right. She had not planned on leaving the way she did, not on his terms, but he put all the cards on the table. She should have remembered he was a skillful player, and he always played to win, but since that night, he regretted showing his hand at all. He never dreamed his marriage would come to a division.
He never wanted to live his life without her. She was his world; even when he’d whored around and gave himself so easily to others, he always thought she would be there. He never understood how a couple could live together for ten, twenty, thirty, or more years and separate for some stupid, bullshit indifferences like adultery. He’d always thought love could overcome
anything and everything, but his home became a house for damn near two years. She grew cold and distant, and started working late and later, till it seemed as if she just wasn’t there.
The track was completed; he sat and stared at the console. The project gave him something to do; his usual routine had changed. When she left him, she took away her small talk, her constructive criticism, and her nightly needs, which he reluctantly became accustomed to providing them for her. Those needy chores of hers, wrapping her hair before she went to bed, or after waking up from a nap, yikes. Chores like demanding she pick out her clothes for the next day so he could iron them along with her uniform, or like taking her eyeglasses off her face while she slept, get up to when she got up in the mornings to brush out and style the hair he wrapped the night before, and to be near to hear her silently scream in her sleep during her nightmares.
William peeped into his oldest daughter’s room, as he had done for twenty-two years. She was out again, and the room was a mess, as usual. Clothes laid in all corners, on the desk, on the dresser. Maybe if she spent a little more time at home, she would have some control, or concern. He would wonder just where the hell he went wrong. He closed the door and walked a few steps to the next room. His two youngest daughters were asleep. They had separate beds of their own, but they chose to sleep together, his two darling little angels. Over to his son’s room—where he found the television on, the computer on, the Play Station on—he looked over at his son where he laid in bed asleep with his clothes on. William stepped into the room and thought, this kid. I should wake him up and make him do this. Instead, he began his usual task of shutting everything off.
He headed for the stairs, switching off the hall lights as he started his descent, then the phone rang. He hurried down the stairs to the phone on the end table in the living room. His heart quickened. He thought could it be her? Oh God, let it be her.
“Hello?” William inquired.
“Yo, Will. Still up, I see.” It was Friday, twelve thirty-six in the night, and Jake, his best friend, was looking for a place to hang out. “Want some company? Shit, I got nothing to do. I’m tired of this damn house and the damn woman getting on my nerves. I need to escape, shit.”
“Yeah sure, that’s cool, nothing happening over here. How long?” asked William, knowing it would take Jake at least forty minutes to reach him.
“Fifteen, twenty minutes,” Jake replied.
“Twenty minutes?”
“Yeah, actually, I’m halfway there,” Jake confessed.
“Then why call? Hey, just drop by, walk in, and make yourself at home. Have a sandwich or something,” William said sarcastically.
“Thanks, I was planning to do just that.” Jake welcomed the invitation even though all of which was his norm.
“Yeah cool. See you in a bit.” William placed the cordless phone back into its cradle. He headed toward the back of the house to his study. He stopped when he’d stepped in and stared at the canvas painting of his wife and him, standing sideway, embracing each other, kissing. She was on her toes reaching up to him, his arms wrapped around her. Their nude bodies looked as if they were painted with the finest, silky smooth dark chocolate with butterscotch for their muscular tone.
He’d updated his day planner earlier before he’d checked on the children. Next week was going to be just as busy as this one was. He was tired; it had been a long day, and a quiet evening. He turned the computer and the lights off, and headed for the basement-slash-business.
He entered his basement, walked pass the lounge area and over to one of the three desks, and seated himself. The lounge area was actually two and a half rooms before he took down the partitions. He used the entire basement for his business. It consisted of a professional studio, with two sound rooms—both were medium orchestra size with three individual booths for vocalists; a high-end, high-tech, state-of-the-art mixing console; and the heart of it all, his computer network and file system. The lounging area consisted of a full bar, a mini-kitchen, two full-length white leather sofas, and two matching love seats centered around a large thick squared jewel, a gold leaf coffee table with the top made of onyx. On the coffee table sat all the usual black publications—Black Enterprise, Essence, Ebony, Source, Vibe, and others—to entertain his guests, followed by the small work area, with the three desks, and computer terminals.
At one of the computer terminal, he searched for an album, just one of thousands stored on the system. He selected The Best of Sade. The volume was preset at a low and moderate level. The music played through the eight pairs of slim line speakers placed in various locations throughout the oversized room.
He walked behind the bar and began to prepare his drink—Chivas Regal and Coke on the rocks—in his favorite crystal rocker glass. After a long sip, he walked back to the computer and selected the track, “The Sweetest Taboo.”
It’s been over three weeks since his wife left him. She told the children she would be staying with Aunt Vanessa. She needed time to get away and to think things over, sort out the details and weigh her options. Her plane landed five days ago. The Bahamas was her destination. She left no phone number other than her cell phone, no hotel name, nothing. Well, not with him anyway. She refused to speak with him; she’d only conversed with the kids. Shit, she really didn’t give a damn whether he wanted to speak with her or not. The bastard had the nerves to have done what he did, and she really wasn’t feeling him. Was putting his cards on the table actually come from the act of some stupid shit he did and got caught? Hell no, he was too good to get caught at the shit he did; his game was mad tight. Yet, she left her home, her domain, her position of absolute authority.
William was a woman’s dream—tall, dark, and trained. He possessed the ability to do all domestic house chores, all the handyman chores, all the major electrical and mechanical chores; and besides being able to sew, make patterns, crochet, and garden, he loved pleasing a woman. So what were his faults? Well, he was highly intelligent, he was very secretive, he dreamed too damn big, and he was too damn pleasing to women.
He sat at the desk and sipped from the glass. A sense of loneliness washed over him, making him feel empty. He looked into the glass, ice, and brown liquid—not enough to get him drunk, or fill the emptiness. He had not been sleeping well the last three weeks since she left. He missed her, deeply. Hell, he had it so bad he had yet to change her pillowcases. The scent reminded him of her—she felt closer—and provided him with hope of her return. His cell phone rang, he lifted it from out it’s poach.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Poppy,” said a young woman.
“Hi, baby girl.”
He only called one person by that name, and that was because she would not have it any other way. It was his oldest daughter, Jasmine, and only she solely retained that title. She just turned twenty-two years old and began to explore her sexuality. She stood five- foot-nine; she was almost as tall as her father was. She liked to keep her hair and nails long, and she had the lightest skin tone in the family. She would be best described as a smart, sassy, big-boned, big-assed young woman, who has nothing but love for her father.
“Where are you tonight?” he asked.
“I’m out with Jess and Helen. I’ll be spending the night with Helen, unless you need me to come home.” She prayed he’d say no.
“No. No reason for you to come home, I’m okay.”
“Sure, Poppy?”
“Yeah, baby girl. I’m all right. Coming home tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. I might be in late, there is something I wanna to watch at nine. So I’ll be home before then. Okay, Poppy?” She prayed he had nothing for her to do.
“Yeah, cool,” William responded.
“Has Ma called you yet?”
“No,” He replied.
“How’re the kids?”
“They’re okay. Everyone’s asleep. Jake will be by in a little bit. So we’ll just sit here and get drunk together, play some music, and talk shit for the rest of the night.”
She chuckled. “Okay, Daddy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good night, baby.”
“Good night, Daddy.” She knew he had everything under control.
They disconnected the call. He sled down in the love seat and took a couple of sips. He spied into his glass, and it was three quarters empty. “Hum. Down. Now that’s a no-no.”
He stood and headed back to the bar. As he reached for the Chivas, the doorbell rang. His heart pounded for a second at the thought—could it be her?—but quickly he realized it should be Jake. He placed the bottle on the counter and headed upstairs. He opened the door. No surprise, it was Jake. They embraced and headed back downstairs.
Jake took off his Yankees baseball cap, tossed it over to the far-end sofa, and said, “Hey, drink time.”
“Oh yeah. Pour your own. And bring the bottles over to the table.” William smiled to himself. Finally, he had some company, it had been months since he and his longtime buddy, Jake had shared any time together.
Jake knew where everything was. And why not? It truly was his second home. He had been a part of William’s life for over fourteen years. They worked the same job for more than seven years. They started about the same time. Jake watched William climb his way up from a company delivery driver to the company’s operation manager. All was going well for William until he stepped in to save Jake from getting fired and from possible imprisonment. Back then, keeping Jake out of trouble was something William had done many times before this last great sacrifice.
William took the blame and confessed to stealing over nineteen thousand dollars of produce. He was fired and was lucky not to have served time. He was sentenced to serve three years probation. To Jake, William was a success story, because he turned his life around. William went back to college, graduated with a masters degree in electrical engineering from NYU, started his own company, made lots of money, bought a modern mansion, and rubbed elbows with the stars, so he thought. Actually, William hosted or leased out the studio to a few of the music industry’s celebrities. But he primarily corrected, sampled, or created sound recording; produced masters for some of the top recording labels, companies, and soundmen from around the world. Occasionally he would provide his services to government and local law enforcement agencies.
Oh, and the Pentagon. William had a patent on an invention called “the Filtrex,” a five-year project, which paid off big time. The Filtrex was a box, which could filter out the sound of a roaring disco to hear an ink pin drop and bounce off the floor. The Filtrex had the ability to filter out and focus in on whatever sound one chooses to hear from a recording, tape, disc, or live. William was hoping to make lots of money by selling thousands, millions, but instead he’d only sold twenty.
The Pentagon dropped the ball, and William’s patent was granted before they realize what the plans actually yield. They stopped the manufacturing for the Filtrex, and for two years, there were threats, court battles, and bullshit harassment techniques used against William. They went as far as labeling William and Yvonne as major drug dealers. They said William murdered three reviled dealers up in the Bronx for their drugs. They couldn’t provide any evidence to lay to their claim, so when that didn’t work, they threaten to have William and his family erased. William informed them that several people had copies of the Filtrex plans and would publish them on the Internet if anything were to happen to his family or to him. They came to an agreement. William could only market the Filtrex in a scaled-down version, and he had to retail that version for an unreasonable one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. And last, a contract and a five-million dollar – a – year grant to perfect the Filtrex where it would be able to pick up sound from great distances in real time, like from a spy plane, or from a satellite out in orbit. William was more than your average man was, he was into more than smarts, a career, and money. Unknown to family and friends, he was in bed, sleeping with Uncle Sam. William R. Green was connected and protected.
“Hey? Where is that fine Latino chick Maria?” Jake asked as he placed the bottles and his glass on the large coffee table.
“Gone. Got her check and split,” William said from his seat on the far-end sofa as Jake took a seat on the sofa opposite him.
“Damn. That girl looks good. Let me ask you . . . is that why Yvonne left?” He poured the Absolute Vodka into the glass he held.
“No. She didn’t say she was the problem. Although there was a time she did accuse me of fucking her,” William admitted.
“Have you?” Jake poured in the orange juice.
“No. She’s my housemaid, my babies’ nanny. I don’t fuck people who work for me. They expect more and do less. Thinking they got something over you.” Jake chuckled. “Actually, I’m not screwing anyone. I told you this crap before. I’m out the game. I don’t have time for all that. I have enough on my plate. No time to be chasing ass,” William confessed.
“Think she’s coming back?” Jake asked.
“Don’t know. Don’t know much of what she does anymore.” William finished his drink, looked into the empty glass and felt his life running in parallel—empty and uncertain. He never fathomed the thought of living without his wife, or her ever having the courage to leave him.
“Maybe that’s why. You weren’t spending any time, you bastard. You’re all wrapped up in this shit you do.”
“Naw. I was always available for her and the kids. My time is my own. No, she stopped coming home, she stopped having conversations, she stopped everything . . .”
“Yeah, because she caught your ass fucking somebody. I know. Yvonne loves you, and the only thing that would make her leave you is another bitch. A woman has got to be out of her fucking mind leaving all this shit behind.”
“I’m telling you man, no. I’m cool now. Nothing’s happening outside or inside of this house.” William started to fix another glass.
“William, let me say this. You’re a nice guy, but you’re also a real bastard. Confess, you’ve done something? What about those panties?” Jake downed the remaining half glass and joined William in the preparation of another glass for himself.
“That was damn near two years ago,” William stated.
“Yeah, like women forget shit. They love making us guys pay for shit years later in life. They get off on that trick.”
“I don’t know, man.” William leaned back.
“And you still don’t know whose panties they were?” Jake leaned back.
“No idea. That sport jacket sat on that hook over there”—he pointed behind him, at a wall with seven hooks—“for like three, four days, and people were all in and out of here. Don’t know who she is—”
“Or he,” Jake added.
“Oh shit. Don’t destroy the fantasy.” William paused. “No clue, man. She never revealed herself.” He sipped. “Man, back then, at that time I don’t even know if I would have, but these days, I’m getting backed up.”
“Backed up? You really haven’t been doing anything?” Jake sipped. Knowing the history of William’s whorish ways and past behavior, he was surprise. He would have bet money his friend was operating under the radar.
“No. I’ve been good for a while. I’m talkin’ years. There have been lots of changes in my life. A lot of shorties pushin’ up on me, but I’m tired of all that crap.”
“Yeah, your ass is getting old, that’s all, or finally growing up. Now me, I need the exercises.”
“What, Tam’s not taking care of you?” William asked.
“Man, I’m chasing Tam off me. Shit, you know she’s still asking me to do that.”
“Do what? The booty?” William chuckled.
“Yeah, man.”
“What’s up with that?”
“No.” Jake waved his hand at William.
“Yo. You better take care of your girl. She’s calling. You better hit that before someone else does.”
“Yeah, like you, you bastard.”
“Your girl looks good, but no. That’s okay. I like you, you dumb fuck.”
“I don’t know how you can do that shit. It’s nasty. Putting my dick in someone’s ass. That shit is sick.” Jake declared.
“How the hell would you know, if you never done it?”
“I did it before, and seeing shit all over my dick wasn’t pleasing, or a rewarding sight, let me tell you.”
“You did it wrong. You got caught in the moment and got nasty. Now if you’re going to do that, you have to prepare.”
“Prepare?” Jake reached for the bottle again. “How the fuck you do that?”
“I told her how. She’s ready for you. She’s going to get tired of that dildo.”
“Yeah, you and your conversations. Ever since that night, she has been getting on my damn nerves.”
“Jake, not for nothing, that’s your lady; take care of her needs and dreams, and she’ll be with you for life.”
“Bullshit. Where’s yours? And I know you took good care of her.”
“Now that’s low, you bitch.” He leaned forward toward the table to mix another drink. Jake’s statement was why William disliked telling people his business; they always threw it in your face at some point and time. “But you’re right. I did everything I thought I should be doing. I’ve tried to give her all of her desires and still it wasn’t enough.”
“Did you try giving her you?”
“Look who’s talking? Won’t fuck his wife in the ass and you ask me that shit? She always had me. I was always here. Even when I whored around, she came first. I love her Jake. She’s my girl, my friend, my boo. Hell, I like her more than I like you.”
“Something pissed her off. Man, maybe it was that shit on your back.”
William wondered. Could that be the reason for her behavior? No. She couldn’t have a clue to its legion, what it really symbolized. No one knew. He caught a chill. The same cold chill he received when he was looking in the mirror while shaving a week ago. Oh God, was it true? He saw it in the mirror. Could he have been mistaken? Silence reined for a moment, and it wasn’t from the possibility of Yvonne having a clue to the tattoo on his back.
The Closet Cove
http://www.lulu.com/Lifetestimonies
The Closet Cove
The Poem that Started it AllBy Terry Reece, Karoderick Reece THE CLOSET COVE THIS Mythical Story was Developed By Karoderick Jamaal Reece, as a “SPIN-OFF” to the Magical Understanding of the POEM, written by Terry “THE WARRIOR” Reece, called “THE CLOSET COVE”! See THE Poem, at the Book’s Beginning
Publication Date:
Jan 17 2005
ISBN/EAN13:
1438240562 / 9781438240565
Page Count:
46
Binding Type:
US Trade Paper
Trim Size:
6″ x 9″
Language:
English
Color:
Black and White
Related Categories:
Fiction / Fantasy / Short Stories
THE POEM that Started it All:
THE CLOSET COVE
The 1st page Featured Poem in NOBLE House’s 2005; Theatre of the Mind
By Terry “THE WARRIOR” Reece
I crawled up into the space where no one could see me there.
The woods and the forest were so green;
I can still smell the fresh air.
Nothing quite like the freshness of
the country air, when the fall
Is beginning to come; yet the summer’s not trying to play fair.
Those rustic colors and bright speckles of leaves rustle and
blow through the streets of the woods, like forgotten critters of the element.
I’m flowing, and running and having
So much fun, just listen to the animals as
They watch the glistening sun.
“ShuussHHHH”; that sound is
from the small stream just rolling
along across the rocks and lily
pad beans. Frogs croak a bit, yet,
it’s not their time of day; Not quite
evening yet, as those heated
winds rustle the season away.
Now it’s time to return to the
world of reality. Must go down now,
from this place. This place of the CLOSET COVE, my favorite
place. OK; Here I go! Here I go down from this place!
Here I go, Here I go, Here I go!
©Copyright 1990
By Terry “the Warrior” Reece
Now, “We, the counsel shall come to order.” (Rev. Mitchell was not only over the church, but he was also over the town counsel). “We come together to follow up on the accounts put against Mrs. Debra Johnson.” “Do you, Mrs. Johnson deny any of the accounts put forth against you?” “No, I am who I am!” The counsel begins to whisper amongst themselves. Suddenly one of the counsel members noticed that the witch was not there. As the gentlemen were trying to figure out where the which had disappeared: “But, I shall warn you any harm done to me shall be turned against you and this entire dreaded town.” The counsel reacts loudly. “We should burn the little snake!” “NO, we should hang her from a tree!” The counsel reacted so loudly that it was very difficult for the Rev. to obtain order. “ORDER, ORDER!” Finally, the counsel settled themselves down. “As Mayor and Head of the Holy Church, I and the other counsel members sentence you to death by hanging of tree and fire.”
As the Rev. made these comments something strange happened. All the lights (remember in these times there were only oil lamps and candles) went out for just a few seconds. As the lights came back on, everyone tried gathering themselves. The men ran outside. They saw men, women, and children running about loudly.
The men looked upon the hill and the Witch’s home was lit up with light. The skies were filled with clouds as the thunder roared. A boom here and a bang there made the people in the town very frightened. “Is there anything we can do to stop her?” “No, there’s not a thing any of us can do right now”. We will just have to wait until Sunday night”. For days the skies were filled with darkness; there was no such thing as light.
Even the nights were frightening, for if you were here in these times, you would not find a single person out in the chaos. Days passed as so did the nights. Day after day, night after night, the storms, the booms, and the bangs continued. Sunday finally came.
All that morning the people gathered supplies, torches, sticks, poles; anything they could find to destroy the Witch. But as you all know, Witches are very intelligent and it is very hard to trick them. So the counsel came up with a plan that would destroy her (the Witch) forever. The plan was to surround the dreaded looking house and overtake the home by going through the doors and windows. Of course they all sat and waited till nightfall when they felt that the “Lord’s help” would be at it’s strongest.
Finally the time had come. As they walked up the hill, they began to say the Lord’s Prayer in unison. Some were silent while others were very loud, for each individual did what it took to get him or her by. When they reached the awful looking home of the witch, the Rev. said one prayer and then calmly yelled loudly for the witch to open her door. There came no answer from the witch. While they were trying to get her to open the door, the witch stared out the window preparing to do total damage to all those who stood outside her home.
Now I will not tell you the things she said and the rituals she spouted because if I did, then this book probably would not last on the market. I will tell you this; the things she said would make a blind man see.
Back outside, the counsel called twelve men up front with a very large battering ram to knock down the witch’s door. Silence overcame everyone and all you could hear were the voices shouting “ONE, TWO, THREE”. Suddenly the door or the house was knocked down and the entire town was inside of the witch’s home. All over, you ??? upstairs looking for the witch. If I were to say that no one was afraid, then I would be ??? Yet they still kept going.
Then as they marched down the hallways of the house, they all saw a big cloud of smoke come up out of nowhere. Someone yelled, “ Look out” and as someone said this, an old man was pushed out the way of a falling wooden panel board from the roof. The old man yelled loudly. “The little wench is mine”! No one paid the little man any attention because he, of course, was running off at the mouth. But if there was anyone there whom was not afraid and if there was anyone present with a heart, it was the old man.
The Fantasy Master – Excerpt
Jasmine is a loyal, hardworking professional woman who enjoys the company of good friends, especially her best friend Renee. Unfortunately for Jasmine, all is not well at home. Her once passionate relationship with her boyfriend Lewis is now shrouded by secrets. After Jasmine and Renee uncover what Lewis has been doing while working late nights, she kicks the love of her life out of her life.
After time has passed, Jasmine meets Anthony, a man who takes her away from reality. She’s convinced she has met her soul mate and feels emotionally ready to give herself to Anthony. But Lewis is determined to ruin her new start with him. And now a lover from Lewis’ past will reveal a devastating secret to Jasmine, which may potentially take her away from Anthony – the master of all of her fantasies.
The Fantasy Master allows readers the opportunity to laugh, cry, and rejoice. It lets you address the emotional situation everyone experiences in real life and permits you to reflect on their significance. The Fantasy Master will keep you on the edge of your seat as you wonder what could possibly happen next.
LAST DAY OF VICTIMIZATION
LAST DAY OF VICTIMIZATION
ISBN-13: 9780980246896
Contact information: autographed copies and author contact@ universalove26@yahoo.com
Anointed Word Media Group, LLC @ http://www.anointedwordbookstore.net
Barnes & Noble @ http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Last-Day-of-Victimization/Linda-D-Wattley/e/9780980246896/?itm=2
Prayer unites the soul to God, for although the soul may always be like God in nature and substance, it is often unlike Him in condition.
Julian of Norwich, 1342-1413
Gripping the Soul
A HORRIFIC MOVEMENT HAS TAKEN PLACE MAKING US AWARE WE ARE AN INDIVIDUAL AND WE HAVE A SOUL. It is a taking that mars our total being. It carries the vibrations of a wounded animal dying with no value. Immediately when something is taken from us a death-like agony fills our emotions and feelings. It makes us aware of a reality beyond the body and worldly environment. We come to realize what we are made of. That part of us silenced by external influences now becomes louder than our physical environment. We feel like we’re bleeding yet in many cases there is no blood. Something is oozing coming forth like puss from an infected wound. We try to stuff everything back inside ourselves but whatever it is, we can’t see or touch it to control and direct it. It is like someone has literary pulled our hearts out of our chests and held it in their hands. We see them with it but we can never get it back; yet we are alive and we have to go on although this huge part of us is gone.
It takes hold of our total mind and heart and festers into sweet sorrow because we have been robbed of our natural life flow to experience the moment uninhibited by evil forces. Bitterness follows in most cases because that is what unjust pain becomes. The instant preparation of a private abyss formulates to pull us deeper into the darkness of our agony.
My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. Job 10:1
VIEW LAST DAY OF VICTIMIZATION
http://www.gospeltube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=3027cb7a12f945151cb8
Posting the First Chapter
Posting the First Chapter
Simply visit the SLS eMagazine and post the first chapter excerpt from your book. You will have to login with the email you are using now. You will be sent an invitation from me. Make sure that you include the title of the book, ISBN, distributors, and your contact information at the top of the post. People from all over the world will have an opportunity to read your work!
Post here: http://banemagazine.blogspot.com
