Love/Fate (8 page)

On the way home, Anisa was silent. She had greeted Ingrid stiffly, pissed that she had to meet Born's mother under these circumstances. Anisa was angry, and she was near tears after spending the night in jail. She wasn't prepared for shit like this. The lifestyle Born lived was one that she was enjoying, but prison—that was
never
supposed to be a factor, and Anisa was as mad as hell. She hadn't called her family to tell them about her arrest, since doing so would have meant disgrace for her. She had the kind of family that would have shunned Born for leaving her so vulnerable, and she didn't want that. She knew that Born was a smart man, who would always be successful. She had watched him move and could tell that he was an intelligent hustler—certainly more intelligent than his cohorts in the game. She didn't want to blow what was turning out to be a pretty good thing, by complicating things with family drama. Anisa was getting used to living the life that Born led. She was growing accustomed to the fine linen and exquisite surroundings, the jewelry, the cash, and all the luxury he surrounded himself with. The last thing she wanted to do was become a headache for him. She figured that as long as she continued to play her cards right and be as opposite of Jada as she could, eventually Born would give her everything she wanted. She was counting on it. Born talked to his mother, and Anisa listened to their exchange.

“You should have known better than to have that shit in your house, Marquis.”

“I know. Not now, Ma. Please.” Born shook his head, and looked out of the window.

“Not now? When, then? You need to be more careful. I know that you
know better than that. You're slipping. You know you gonna have to do some time for this, right?” Ingrid took her
eyes
off the road briefly and looked at her son. “Burnett said they wanna offer you a deal. I ain't saying to take it, but you need to be ready for that possibility. How much money did they get when they raided your house?”

Born had thought about this question, and knew that Ingrid would inevitably ask it. He already knew where this was going. “I had like seven thousand in cash, along with all the other stuff they seized.”

Ingrid shook her head. “Well, you know they only turned in seven hundred dollars in cash, along with the drugs they found.”

Born nodded that he did know that. “I expected that, though. They never turn in all of it.”

“I just don't understand how you could be so sloppy.” Ingrid couldn't help leveling with her son. “I know you had to expect that these clowns out here would get sick of seeing you on top. You know the streets only love you until you start doing
too
good. Then they hate you. You gotta watch your back. You should have been expecting them to come to your door eventually, and for that reason you never should have had shit in your house.”

Born looked at his mother. His eyes pleaded with her to save this conversation for later. He wasn't in the mood for this so soon after being sprung. She grasped the meaning in his stare, and closed her mouth, driving the rest of the way in silence. As they pulled up in front of the house, Ingrid turned to her son. “I cleaned up as best I could, but the place is still pretty messed up.” Born had expected that the police had trashed his home during their raid, and he was grateful that his mother had used her spare key to straighten up his home as much as possible. He thanked her, gave her a kiss on her soft cheek, and climbed out of the car.

Ingrid watched Anisa in the backseat, looking terribly upset that she'd been forced to spend the night in jail. She sat there, not budging as she waited for Born to open her door and help her out of the car. The expression on her face was that of someone who was suffering. Ingrid, knowing that her son would take all the weight, and that Anisa wouldn't have to take a fall in the end, didn't like how the young woman was portraying
the role of the victim. Anisa's lips were pouty, and she had her darkest sunglasses on her face, like she was at a funeral or something. Ingrid knew that if you want to be a hustler's wife you need to be able to roll with the punches, and take things for better or worse. Anisa didn't seem to have what it took to stand the test of time. Ingrid took note of this, and added this to her list of reasons for not particularly liking her son's new girlfriend.

Born opened the car door, and Anisa stepped out and bid his mother good-bye. They walked into the house, and both went to take much needed showers. By the time Anisa emerged from hers, Born was hanging up the phone after a conversation with Grant. Born was not disappointed. Grant had made his case sound a lot less grim. He explained that due to the quantity of drugs they'd found and Born's previous arrest record, he would have to do some time in jail. But the judge had called in a favor and the prosecution was seeking far less time than the five years Born had previously been facing. Now Born was looking at a one-and-half-year bid, which he eagerly accepted. The charges against Anisa would be dismissed. He thanked Grant for his help, called Burnett and instructed him to accept the plea deal. He could tell that Anisa was relieved to hear that she would be off the hook. Born, on the other hand, spent the next few weeks preparing for his incarceration and passing his torch in the streets for the duration of his absence.

Now Born wished he had a crew behind him—someone he could trust to hold shit down in his absence. As much as he hated to have to do it, he went back to his old hood and got in touch with his boys from Arlington. Martin was still locked up on the attempted murder charge. So Born called on Chance and Smitty. He explained what Burnett had told him, and turned over the buildings in Arlington to them. His only condition was that they hold it down for him and welcome him back when his bid was over. The three of them spent an evening together like they had in the good old days—drinking and reminiscing, and burying all their old hatchets. He was confident when he left that his cronies would wield their power well. He put Omar in charge of Park Hill. It was an operation that was running smoothly. And since Omar was one of Dorian's
old cronies, he trusted him. Also, he had the power of Dorian's notorious brothers behind him, and Born figured few would challenge that. He passed the reins to the people he trusted most, and went to embrace his fate. He pled guilty, and went in for sentencing. Anisa and his mother were both in the courtroom as he was led away to begin his bid.

During his months at the jungle in New York City known as Rikers Island, Born managed to steer clear of catching another case. He was anxious to leave Rikers, where the C.O.s let the inmates run the jail, and the gangs ran amok. Born had nothing against the gangbangers. But he saw them all as bullies. And he only respected bullies who had the heart to bully all alone—not those with a whole gang behind them. Six weeks after he was locked up at Rikers, he was transferred to Franklin Correctional Facility in upstate New York. When he got to Franklin, Born went to reception, and they reviewed his case and all the charges against him. The decision was made to put him into a drug program for six months. Born assumed this was due to the fact that all the charges against him were drug-related. He surmised that they probably wanted to show him the type of damage he was doing by participating in the drug trade.

During his time in the program, Born was forced to take a look at himself and his role in the game. He thought about his father, who had never gotten over his love affair with the fast lane. He started to wonder if it was time for a change. But prison being what it was, he was forced to revert back to the devil within daily, and to react to his environment. He had a few words with his fellow inmates from time to time. But for the most part he managed to keep himself out of trouble. The part that was the hardest for him was the constant attempts by the correction officers to demean the prisoners. Many of them walked around like overseers on a plantation, barking orders and daring the inmates to cross their invisible lines. They looked for any excuse to toss a nigga in the box, and many of them were assholes. A couple were cool, though, and those were the ones who came in and did their jobs without becoming obsessed with power and control. Born didn't like being told when he could use the telephone, or what colors he could wear. But he managed to humble himself and roll with the punches of being incarcerated. While in the
drug program, one of the administrators explained that 85 percent of those inmates who earned their GEDs got paroled. To Born that was a blueprint to get out of jail, and he was determined to be in the next 85 percent. He studied for and passed his GED, and kept his mind occupied with books and magazines.

In the beginning of his bid, Anisa had held him down. She came to visit, put money on his books, sent him books and magazines, food, and some clothes. But it wasn't long before those things began to dwindle, and Anisa seemed to disappear into thin air. He called from time to time, and she didn't answer her phone. Born wasn't completely surprised. He had half expected her to forget about him once he got locked up. He had known in his heart that she wasn't cut out to be loyal, and to make frequent visits upstate. But still Born was bothered by her absence at a time when he needed her most. He thought back on how much time and money he had spent with her, and wondered if he'd ever find a woman who reciprocated for once. Born chalked it up as another reason women couldn't be trusted. Doing time was hard, but he saw every day he spent in jail as being one day closer to going home.

When his six months in the program were done, Born was released into the general population, and he came face-to-face with a blast from his past. Martin was also an inmate there, housed in a separate dorm, but still in close proximity to his former best friend. Since Born's departure from the crew, Martin had never stopped harboring the feeling that he had been slighted somehow. He was still a little pissed that Born had never looked back when he started making major moves. Some of their animosity had been resolved at Born's father's funeral. But still there was uneasiness between the two that had been hard to penetrate over the years.

But up north, Born found himself relieved to see Martin's familiar face. And Martin, being the live wire that he was, had established quite a reputation for himself. Born was happy to align himself with his childhood friend. And as the months slowly passed, the two of them bonded again in the prison yard, or the mess hall, and soon they were close once more. It was like old times again.

During the time he spent in jail, Born lost sight of Jada, and had no
idea how far she'd fallen after their split. But some news from home did reach him.

Soon, via the ghetto grapevine, Born learned that his stronghold in the streets of Staten Island was no more. Chance and Smitty had allowed some new niggas to take over their neighborhood drug trade. And to make matters worse, Smitty and Chance were now working for the new kids on the block. They were a disgrace in Born's eyes, because all they really had had to do was to maintain what he had already established. He was disgusted. Upon hearing this news, Born tried to stay to himself in order to avoid anybody pissing him off, and causing him to get in trouble. Any little thing was capable of setting him off. So he stayed away from everyone else, and kept his head in a book to escape. Martin was also irate because of the news that his boys—his brother most of all—had let the block go to some unknown. He and Born both wallowed in regret for making decisions that had cost them both their freedom and their empires. Born stayed in his bunk day after day, and only joined the other inmates when it was time to eat dinner. That was when all hell broke loose.

Born had found out that the man who had killed his friend Bobby years prior, during his crew's shootout with A.J., was now housed in the same prison dorm as he was. The guy was in for drug offenses, and Born wanted badly to keep himself out of trouble. So he had steered clear of the bastard, hoping not to catch any unwanted charges while he waited out his sentence. He figured that the guy, whose name was Ray, would get what was coming to him eventually. Born didn't need the attention that an altercation with another inmate would surely bring. He was still sore about what was going on back home, and filled with worry for his mother, and how she was maintaining out there on her own. The last thing he was expecting was for some old beef to come and provoke his inner monster.

But as he walked past Ray's table in the mess hall, Ray tripped Born on purpose, and caused his food to go flying across the room as he stumbled, trying to regain his balance. Ray sat there and laughed right in Born's face, and Born rushed the man with all his might. Ray wasn't faring
too well in the fight, and tried to pull out a makeshift shank he had hidden in his waistband. Born saw him going for it, though, and every ounce of anger, every ounce of rage, fueled his fight. He had never felt as strong as he suddenly was. His adrenaline pumped through his veins. They fought savagely, locked in a ferocious battle, as the correction officers closed in to break it up. By the time they pulled Born off of the man, Ray was bleeding from his stomach. Born was holding a bloody screwdriver he'd taken from his job as a porter in the administrative building. He had liked that job because it allowed him access to the visiting room, and to tools such as the rusty screwdriver that he'd used to stab Ray four times in the stomach. Born's intention was to kill the man. That way he wouldn't have to deal with him for the rest of his bid. He had known that, with all the bad news he'd received in the past few weeks, whoever he put his hands on would be in trouble. The officers tackled Born to the floor, and wrestled the weapon from his hands. They dragged him off to the box, and shut him in for the night.

He was transferred the next day to a facility in Comstock, New York, where he spent the next eleven months of his sentence in solitary confinement. Ray had survived, though he was reduced to using a colostomy bag for a long time. And Born knew that this was another beef that would follow him for as long as Ray was still alive.