Nasty (27 page)

It was a race to see who would be first. Nicola rode him, all the while her love-button kept smashing against his body, sending a thousand watts of creamy electrical current up her spine. Reaching the finish line…the gates of pleasure opened. She was there. She screamed out loud in celebration, “Ahh…Ahhh…oh Jonathan…JONATHAN!”’

Carlos’s heart was racing. Mad adrenaline pumped through his veins. The conversation he heard was now fully audible. He could hear what the couple were saying. Nasty talk. Nasty, I’m-enjoying-this-fuck kind of talk. And he knew it was definitely Nicola’s voice. He had heard it too many times before.

He entered the gallery. It was dark, but he could still make out shadows. He saw Nicola’s thong on the floor and the two bodies on the chaise longue, both engaged in a furious sexual dance. He knew it was Nicola. She was coming and she was letting everybody know about it. She wasn’t even the least bit ashamed or worried that someone might discover her.

“Daddy, I got to go make pee-pee.” Tarik looked at the little boy who had mischief painted all over his face. He figured it was just a ploy to leave the ceremony, but he took him to the bathroom anyway. Soon as he set the little bugger down, he ran away from him, heading straight down the hall.

Tarik chased after him. “Stop running, boy.” Glad to be free and out of the room and all the solemnity, the little boy wanted to play with his daddy.

Tarik repeated his warning. “I said stop now, Javon!”

“Daddy can’t catch me!” Laughing, Javon stopped in front of the gallery door.

“Boy, if you go in there, I’m gonna take…” He reluctantly added, “I’m gonna take my belt off!”

Javon laughed. His daddy, who had threatened him so many times before, and had never laid a hand on him, hadn’t even worn a belt today.

The precocious child reminded him. “Daddy don’t have no belt.”

Pissed at himself and his smart-alecky son, he tried to rush
ahead of him to stop him. “If you go in there, boy, your butt is mine!”

Javon pushed the gallery door wide open and turned to face his father. Javon just laughed and squealed, “I’m going to see the sleepytime place.” As far as he was concerned…he was playing a game with his daddy. Tarik grabbed for him and missed.

He smiled back at him and ran into the room.

Carlos never heard Javon enter the gallery. He never heard his brother yell after the boy. It never registered. Before he knew what he was doing, the gun was in his hand and he was pulling the trigger. Bullets pumped out that ricocheted all over the room. He finally stopped when a sharp, intense, explosive wave of pain traveled from his scrotum to his penis. “Oh shit…I blew up…I blew up my dick!” He turned and saw that little Javon had collapsed in a puddle of blood.

Everything was in slow motion. He barely heard Tarik yelling at him and screaming out for help. He never saw Jonathan holding what was left of his knee. The last thing his mind allowed him to contemplate before a curtain of unconsciousness completely engulfed him…was Nicola. How was she? Where was she? Where was Nicola?

Sherry and Ophelia burst through the door.

“OH MY BABY! OH MY GOD! WHO DID THIS?” Sherry looked at her son and knelt down next to him. Tarik cradled the young boy in his arms. Blood bubbled out the corners of his mouth.

“Mommy…Daddy…am I…am I at the…the sleepytime place?”

“Yes, baby…yes, Javon!” comforted Tarik.

“Good, Daddy.” And then his eyes closed; never to open again. His body grew limp in Tarik’s arms.

“Javon…JAVON…BABY!!!!” Sherry screamed out. Tarik cried.

Sherry looked around. She knew it was somebody’s fault. The only one standing without a scratch on them was Nicola. Without any explanation…she knew the bitch was behind it all.

Sherry got up from where her dead child lay and jumped on Nicola. Nicola tried to defend herself, but she was no match for a mother who had just lost her child. Sherry forgot all she had learned about anger management and beat the snot out of Nicola.

N
icola felt like a human being for the first time after the funeral. For the first time in three weeks, she was sobering up after doing nothing but drinking alcohol and watching the wounds that Sherry had inflicted upon her heal.

Nicola dragged herself into the bathroom. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. The swelling around her eyes had finally gone down. Marveling at the purplish discoloration from the black eye Sherry had given her, she thought,
That little woman packed one hell of a punch. But I deserved it. She shoulda killed me
.

The plastic surgeon who stitched the cuts over the rest of her face, reassured her the scars would be almost undetectable and, if they were noticeable, he could use his magic on them and make them disappear entirely.

But it wasn’t her face that troubled Nicola. It was a dead little boy. A senseless death that she felt responsible for.

Every time her mind cleared, she could still see Tarik cradling Javon in his arms. She could still hear him screaming for someone to help. And Lord, the tears. The tears he shed on that dying child’s face and the way it mixed with the bright red blood that pumped out from that fatal gun wound. That’s what tortured Nicola the most.

Every time she read the newspaper delivered to her door, or turned on the TV and saw a news report about the incident, it brought the image back. The pain of the memory made Nicola head to her well-stocked liquor cabinet and guzzle down whatever she could, trying desperately to dull the memory. All it did was prolong the inevitable. She would have to face reality one day soon.

Today was evidently the day. Nicola took a long hot bath. Still feeling unclean, she took an even longer shower. She threw on a sweat suit, thinking she could forget by running on the treadmill and building up a good sweat. The more she ran, the vision and memory of what happened at the funeral wiped away all other thoughts and concerns.

She turned off the treadmill and ran out of her home gym. Fueled by an idea she was sure would help, Nicola stormed into her ex-husband’s office and rampaged through his desk. She let out a sigh of relief.
Thank God. It’s still here. This will help me…it always did before
. She picked up what she hoped would help soothe her soul…a strand of rosary beads…beads blessed by the Pope himself.

Looking for the most tranquil spot in her home, Nicola ran up to her rooftop patio. Sitting on a bench, for two hours straight, she dutifully caressed each individual bead, silently praying and confessing her sins in mantra-like fashion.

At the end of two hours, feeling no spiritual solace from performing the ritual, she ripped and tore the beads off the strand. They flew off in every direction, creating chaos as they landed on the wood planks of the patio floor. Frustrated, seeking comfort and relief, she yelled out to God:

Punish me, please!!! Punish me…not that boy…not that boy…But I’m a victim, too.

Eli…That damn dope addict…He’s lucky his ass got away…lucky he’s dead…’cuz I’d kill him all over again…if he hadn’t messed up my chance of being adopted by a normal family…his normal family…those evil demon bastards who did adopt me would’ve never had a chance to fuck me.

Maybe things would’ve been different…maybe I would have seen that my husband was a faggot back in the beginning…I wouldn’t have married him…and then I wouldn’t have been at that funeral parlor screwing that young boy…trying to…soothe my pain…MY PAIN. My pain hurt Carlos…made him jealous…made him blind with jealousy…that’s why he pulled the trigger…and hurt Jonathan and then killed little Javon…that precious child…that beautiful baby boy. He’d still be alive!

Staring at her image in the mirror, and caressing the scar on her neck, she derived some soothing pleasure as a new idea began to gestate in her tortured mind. A smile, her first one since the tragedy, slowly climbed into the chiseled features on her face.

Someone must be punished! Somebody has to pay. I need to know that other folks feel the pain, too. I need to make someone feel that hurt. I need to hurt somebody…so I won’t feel this pain…I need to punish these motherfuckers. All those folks who hurt children…women…the innocents…all of them. Hurt them bad. Hurt them like I was hurt.

Damn you, Eli…Damn the Martins…glad I burned both your perverted souls to hell…fucking with kids like that…and damn you, too, Harrison…for not loving me like a man…like I needed you to…DAMN EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!!

I will hurt them.

I will make them feel pain.

All of them. Every last one.

Insane with frustration, insane with the idea of rendering punishment, Nicola went outside of her house and found her car. She opened up the glove compartment and dumped everything out, frantically searching for information. And then she found it. The business card the Williams twins had left behind. It was an advertisement for the S&M club in Greenwich Village. That’s where she needed to go. That’s where she was headed.

But the good Lord was running Nicola’s show that day for sure. As she turned around to rush back into her home to prepare for an evening of carnal-inspired violence, He sent her a spirit of wisdom and good old common sense. It grabbed hold of Nicola, held her tight, and never let go.

It finally dawned on Nicola…that she needed to stop the madness in her life…not intensify it. Beating strangers with whips, chains or whatever device she could put her hands on, was not the solution. It was time to stop punishing the world, herself, or anybody else for the events that had taken place in her life or Javon’s.

It was time to ask for help; time to figure out how she could become a complete person for the first time in her life. Nicola took the card advertising Dido’s Retreat, crumpled it up and threw it in the trashcan. She walked back into her Harlem brownstone a newly born woman; ready to change her life.

On her long laundry list of things to fix in her life. she prayed she got the opportunity to mend bridges with Carlos. Her heart leaped out to him when she read about his hellish childhood in the newspaper. It made her re-think about who he was. In her angry fuck-everybody-in-sight whirlwind, she had never given the man a chance. All he ever wanted to do was love her.

She and Carlos were, in some respects, soul mates. When other kids were jumping Double Dutch, playing stoopball and
feeling safe in the arms of loved ones, they were fending off sick, out-of-control adults. How did they find the strength and courage to survive their early years?

She didn’t know the answer, but she knew who did. Nicola dropped her head in a humble, respectful pose and prayed to the heavenly Father one more time that day…and this time she didn’t scream or yell:

Good Lord…please show me and Carlos and all of Your children who never had a chance…show us the way to that same well of strength…let us tap into it, just one more time…just one more time, would You, Lord? Could You please…could You please let the healing begin?

F
rom his window seat on the Boeing 747, Jonathan blankly stared out at the thick dense clouds. Angry, jagged streaks of lightning lit up the sky. Caught in a massive storm system, the plane jerked passengers and crew back and forth.
Getting back home to New York,
thought Jonathan,
would not be easy. But then again, I don’t deserve easy.

A toddler cried in the aisle next to him. The crying reminded him of Javon. Poor little innocent Javon.

It was almost nine months ago. Jonathan was still in the hospital recovering from knee replacement surgery when they held Javon’s funeral. He could still see his mom sitting at his bedside, describing the event, telling him how tragic it was to see the little brass coffin with everyone’s beloved Javon inside.

“When I went to console Tarik and Sherry,” his mother had told him, an occasional tear staining her cheeks, “…all they would say…and not to me, mind you…they acted like I wasn’t even standing there. All they would say to each other was how cute Javon looked in his grown man suit. And when they viewed the body, they just fooled around with his little black satin bow tie, the one I had bought for him.”

Jonathan had tried to stop his mother. The details of the funeral were too painful for him. He begged, “Ma, it’s okay. It’s over now.”

But she ignored him and continued with her story. “Jonathan, it was really emotional in that church. To see Tarik and Sherry up at that little casket fidgeting with that tie. And they were laughing and giggling and having a good time by themselves. They even started clapping when they adjusted the tie the way they wanted it.”

And then she paused, like she was seeing the scene right in front of her. “Then they stood there for what seemed like hours staring at him…kissed him on his cheek…and smiling a smile that was…unnatural…not a tear shed between them!”

Jonathan remembered his mom then getting out of her chair. She stared out of the hospital window to look at the East River. He knew she was trying to pull it together, so she could finish the story with some dignity. But she couldn’t. The nurse in her had held it back for as long as she could.

Close to a complete tearful breakdown, she reminisced, “Jonathan, baby, they treated that little boy like, like he was taking a nap. Only this time, this time, that sweet, sweet baby wasn’t ever waking up.”

A middle-aged flight attendant gently shook him and made Jonathan momentarily stop thinking about the past. “Sir, we’re landing, please buckle up.”

Jonathan pulled the seat belt around him and snapped it in place.

Getting off the plane, Jonathan felt some discomfort in his knee. It reminded him of the physical therapy sessions he endured after the surgery. Jonathan loved therapy because of the pain. He knew he was crazy, but he always felt emotional relief whenever his knee sent waves of excruciating pain through his body. He even refused the pills the doctors offered him. Physical discomfort helped dull the memory of the tragedy.
In the beginning, he even tried to deny himself sleep. He hated falling asleep because his dreams betrayed him. They were always about him, Nicola, and their sexual escapades. He’d awaken with a hard-on or have intense wet dreams. He was ashamed of his penis and his sexuality. It had betrayed him. He wanted to blame Nicola, but he couldn’t. No matter how his family tried to console him. He knew better. Sex during a funeral. What kind of pervert was he?