Sinful (8 page)

“It's ruined!” he shouted. “Twenty-five hundred dollars down the drain because you wanted some attention! I'm tired of you acting up when you don't get your way. Look at what you made me do!” Marvin was hot. Admittedly, he hadn't been as thoughtful as when they initially married, and he did not fully understand why. He still loved Chandelle more than his actions conveyed. He wondered sometimes if she should have married one of the ball players she'd dated before meeting him. Maybe then Chandelle would be happy now. And as a result, maybe so would Marvin. After brooding over the television, smashed beyond repair, he went over to check on Chandelle when it appeared she was actually injured. “You okay, baby?” he asked, sincerely concerned.

“No, I'm not okay, and when are you gonna check on that stupid thing before coming to see about me!” she replied, more salty than hurt. “Maybe now we can talk like I wanted to in the beginning.”

Before Marvin had the time to process Chandelle's complaints, there were three hard knocks at the door. When no one answered fast enough, they beat on it again.

“What!” Marvin yelled, as he opened the door to find two police officers, one black and the other as white as a snowy day. Neither appeared too happy about being shouted at. “Well, what y'all want?” Marvin asked rudely. “Ain't nobody selling drugs here, so you might want to go and harass somebody else.”

They took one look inside the apartment, discovering a knocked-over television set, a hole in the wall caused when Marvin went flying into the coat rack that stood next to it, and Chandelle limping over to rest on the sofa. Both cops stepped inside of the apartment then and backed Marvin against the wall. “Miss, we're answering a public disturbance call. One of your neighbors reported loud screaming and fighting,” the taller white officer stated.

The black cop had positioned himself between Marvin and the very attractive woman who was adequately filling out those sweatpants in a way that got him extremely interested. “Sistah,” the black one called out to get her attention. “This your husband?”

Chandelle winced while rubbing her hip. “Yeah, we're married,” she said softly.

“That don't give him the right to get physical with you, though,” he told her in a comforting voice that Marvin found offensive.

“Say, man! What do you think you're doing?” Marvin heaved, objecting to the officer using the situation to flirt with his wife.

“Shut up!” the black officer asserted. “I bet that's one of your problems, you don't want to listen.” Again, he eyed Chandelle for her approval.

“Man, this ain't even cool,” Marvin barked. “Y'all just can't run up in here like this and talk to me like I don't have any rights.”

“And you can't go slapping your wife around anytime you feel like it,” the white cop replied.

“Sistah, did he hit you?” the black officer asked Chandelle.

“No, he didn't,” she answered. “It wasn't even like that. Besides, it was partially my fault.”

“Yeah, that's what all battered women say,” the black officer contended. “And I guess that flat screen just tossed itself on the ground 'cause it got tired of working?” His countenance had quickly undergone a sudden shift when Chandelle seemed to be protecting Marvin.

“Look, officers, this is a misunderstanding,” Marvin tried to explain before the black cop shut him up by placing his hand on the holstered department-issue revolver.

“No, I understand real good how this sorta thing goes,” he said. “Miss, you say he didn't hit you, but it's obvious you're shaken up and have been manhandled. How do you expect us to believe he didn't put his hands on you?”

“Well, yeah, he did, but it wasn't…” Chandelle uttered before she realized those were the magic words the cops were waiting on. “Hey, hold on,” she hissed, when they charged Marvin with handcuffs dangling from their mitts.

“It's too late for that, ma'am,” argued the pale one as his partner took great pleasure in doing the honors.

“Homeboy, you picked the wrong day to jump on your girl, and as fine as she is, you deserve to go down,” the other whispered to Marvin, while tightening the cuffs behind his back. “You have the right to remain silent…”

“Ahhh, man. Y'all taking me to jail?” Marvin asked, as he dug his heels into the carpet. “This ain't right. Chandelle, please tell them I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“She already told us all we needed hear to lock you up for spousal abuse.” That was the white dude backing up his partner. “Anything you
or your wife
says can be used in a court of law,” he continued sarcastically, as he evil-eyed Chandelle like a jerk who had just been rejected at a nightclub. “That means you oughtta shut up and ole girl should have kept her trap closed too.” He shoved Marvin in the small of the back with his nightstick to prod him along when he saw that there might be a struggle in the making.

“Man, you ain't got to be pushing that thing in my back,” Marvin snapped, as he exited the small apartment. “Y'all know this ain't right!”

Chandelle was mortified. It was all happening too fast for her to grasp. One minute they were horse playing, and the next he was in the midst of being hauled off. “I told y'all he wasn't trying to hurt me. I told you that. Hey! Where are you taking him?” She chased down the stairs behind them, barefoot and beside herself. “Wait. Marvin, I didn't mean for this to happen.”

“Go back in the house, Chandelle, you've said enough already,” he answered, as they shoved him into the back of the police squad car.

She backed up onto the curb and watched as they drove away, wondering how something so innocent turned out to be so bad.

W
hen the patrol car glided into the underground garage downtown, all Marvin could think of was how improbable the chances were that such a simple misunderstanding turned out so terribly wrong. One minute he was watching a football game in the comfort of his quaint apartment, without Dior lurking about to put more of a strain on his morality. Then, as if someone was playing a cruel joke at his expense, his coveted flat-screen television was sizzling on the floor and two determined cops appeared out of nowhere threatening to beat him for something he hadn't done. Unlike most of the inmates he was destined to cross paths with during his stint in the Dallas County lockup, it wasn't he who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that dubious honor belonged to the men who'd plucked him like a low-hanging fruit from the confines of his own backyard. There had to be someone who'd listen to Marvin explain his misfortune, he reasoned, someone in charge, someone who cared that he was actually an innocent man caught in a net of lies. He was innocent. Innocent.

The black officer, the angrier of the two, who thoroughly enjoyed roughing him up while Chandelle looked on, sneered at Marvin from the front seat of the police cruiser before his white partner opened the back door to usher him out, with steel cuffs tightly binding his wrists. “I hope the ride over was to your liking, Mr. Hutchins,” the angry officer said, feigning a momentary bout of sincerity. “Because there will be a lot of fellas in there who'd just love to ride a big, strong, good-looking buck like you.”

Marvin hadn't allowed himself to contemplate what potentially inhumane and most assuredly dangerous tribulations awaited his arrival. He had been hyperfocused on the unfortunate circumstances that led him to that point. Now, he would be forced to shift his attention forward while shelving his tragic afternoon in the recesses of his mind.

“Yeah, he'll be real popular when he hits the pit and the lights go out,” seconded the white cop. “Pretty boys make great slow dancers inside.”

“Whatever,” Marvin replied, adding an extra measure of swagger to his long stride. Having no idea what to expect, he was more nervous than he dared admit. Cops and criminals were a lot alike in one regard, each of them sensed fear like a mad dog. “Ain't no man gonna turn me anyway I don't wanna be turned, including neither one of y'all.”

“Did you hear that, Ted?” the black officer growled, as he shoved his baton in the center of Marvin's back for smarting off. “We'll find out how hard you are when the night gets cold and mean. Better get your dancing shoes laced up nice and tight, twinkle toes.”

“If you didn't have that badge and gun, I'd beat you right out of your shoes,” Marvin would have said, but he'd never been mistaken for stupid. There was no sense in making a bad situation ridiculous, so he wisely kept his comments to himself.

“What? Did I hear you say something, twinkle toes?” The officer glared up at Marvin, just as he did earlier when showing off for Chandelle. There was no doubt that the harsh officer wished Marvin had given him cause to use his discretion and his fists.

“No,” Marvin answered quickly, “I'm done.”

“You're doggone right about that. Come on, step through the door and into my world,” he said with a sinister chuckle.

Upon entering the long corridor where the drafty parking garage met with the justice department intake area, Marvin felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The walls were fashioned with a sound brick construction, six by twelve-inch blocks, covered with several coats of white latex paint. Other than police personnel passing along the hall, it could have been a pathway to any office building in the city, but Marvin wasn't so lucky. The ugly looks he received from uniformed passersby reminded him of that.

As the hallway opened into a larger area, Marvin listened to voices coming from every direction at once. He tried to lean in closer in order to get a handle on things when ordered to state his name to a hefty, flat-footed police veteran who appeared to have little love for his job and less regard for the spare tire that collected around his waist. “Louder!” the dumpy man shouted. “If you hadn't noticed, this is a ‘no whisper' zone. State your name, last first, first next, and middle last.”

“Hutchins. Marvin. Bernard,” answered Marvin, with sharp, concise woofs. His words came out louder than he predicted, but no one seemed bothered in the least. If those jailhouse walls could talk, he'd have understood why his spirited barks didn't draw a single wrinkled brow. He had been delivered to a bad place, one with bad people who did bad things. When slapped with harsh reality that he was going to be booked and processed like one of those bad men, a common criminal, Marvin felt hollow inside. His parents would have died of utter shame if they hadn't passed on already. It was the first time in his life that he was relieved about it.

The policemen who arrested Marvin stood guard until he had been fingerprinted. Another man, a county detention officer dressed in a royal blue uniform, approached him from a glassed-in office while holding a black slate with tiny white lettering aligned in three different rows. When that fellow hung the slated sign around Marvin's neck, he felt like a rabid dog that nobody wanted and would rather have locked away instead of roaming the streets. Marvin glared at the first county officer he'd encountered, the shouter who also served as the mug shot photographer instructing him to hold the slate straight and turn from side to side between poses.

“We'll be seeing you,” the black cop heckled, as two other detention goons entered through a steel door to take Marvin away.

You'd better hope I don't see you first,
Marvin thought to himself, while looking back over his shoulder to exhibit the sentiment in his heart with a menacing jeer.
If I catch you off the clock and in your
civvies, it's on.
The police officer's confused expression almost put a rewarding grin on Marvin's lips, almost, until the steel door slammed behind him. On the inside now, there wasn't one thing to smile about.

“Empty your pockets on the table and take out your shoelaces,” demanded a seasoned gruff-talking man from the opposite side of a stout wooden table, which was old and unfinished, splintered and rough like the gruff talker. Both had undoubtedly outlasted their welcome.

Marvin did as he was instructed, flipping his pants pockets inside out, followed by the tedious task of wrestling shoestrings from his leather high-top sneakers. “What, y'all think I might hurt myself with these?” he said, merely as an audible thought and nothing else.

“Probably not,” answered the senior officer standing at the table. “But there's always the outside chance somebody might decide to use them
to hurt you.
And that fancy timepiece of yours, you might want to hand that over too. Some folks will fight over anything when they get bored.” Upon hearing that, Marvin's leisurely pace increased to the point of breakneck speed. In the blink of an eye, he quickly complied, thus completing his check-in to what many called the “gray bar motel.”

The cell he was shown to wasn't accommodating, to him or the other fifteen or so men camped on the bolted-down bench and dirty cement floors. The only toilet they had access to was a stainless steel bowl, filthy, reeked of urine and bile, and was positioned out in the open against the furthest wall. Privacy was not an offered amenity for a kennel packed with stray mutts. Marvin's temper flared then, feeling helpless and enslaved. He grabbed the nearest bench to the cell door and plopped down on it.

Not fifteen seconds had passed before a country mouse scurried across the floor. Two young white men, who both appeared to be around nineteen, darted after it, swiping at the frightened animal with their rolled up T-shirts.

“Grab it!” one of them yelped. Trap that thing with your shoe!”

“Then what?” the other hollered back. “Let it bite me?”

“Don't worry, it won't put its mouth on your funky butt.”

“Why not? Your sister did last night, twice!” his companion quipped. As quick as that, their focus on catching the rodent disappeared. A real live Texas Cage wrestling match broke out between them. Several of the men looking on began hollering helpful suggestions. Marvin was one of the few not at all interested in the free floor show. Two skinny teenagers scrapping for the heck of it wasn't his idea of entertainment. Before either had sustained a single bruise, the corrections officer swaggered down the block to take a look.

“Uh-huh, just what I thought,” the broad, muscle-bound black man grunted through the cell bars. “If y'all want to wear yourselves out, be my guests, but if one of you gets hurt, I'll have to fill out a report, and believe me, you do not want me to put down my newspaper to fill out a report.” Before he turned and marched off in the same direction he came from, the scrawny young men had clothed themselves and found a quiet place not far from Marvin's feet.

“You better be glad the CO saved you,” one said to the other.

“Whatever, if that's what you want to think,” his partner replied. “Know what? I'm hungry.”

Now that was something Marvin agreed with. “Hey, when do they get around to feeding us?” he asked the harmless scrappers in particular, hoping that anyone with knowledge of the dining schedule would answer.

“I don't know,” they said in unison, before chuckling about it like boys in a gymnasium. “We only just got here 'bout two hours ago.”

“And they haven't learned jack yet,” offered a heftily built man, raisin brown, waking from a nap. “See, I done told them once to sit down and be still. If I have to say it again, ‘the man' is gonna be writing two reports, serious injury reports.” Both teenagers huddled up closer to each other. Marvin had no reason to discount his gripes, the scrappers didn't chance it. There wasn't another peep out of them for hours.

During that time, the cell had evolved into a mini-community with separate factions debating sports trivia and which female movie stars they'd get into bed if the opportunity ever presented itself. Although Marvin refused to join in and toss another worthless opinion on the heap along with theirs, it did get his mind off of the fix that held him in check like a school yard bully. He even noticed laughter pouring out of his mouth when the mountainous raisin called dibs on Halle Barry after Vivica Foxx's name had been passed through too many lips. Like the giant ever had a chance with either of the screen sirens, Marvin mused quietly, until he realized that he had actually entertained sleeping with a woman other than Chandelle. Then he was angry with her all over again.

The squeaky wheels of the dining cart caused him to salivate. He couldn't remember having been so ravenous. Whatever they were handing out, he was determined to wolf it down without wasting a crumb. Unfortunately, his determination and appetite waned as soon as the trustee handed out styrofoam cups of watered-down Tang, and then tossed out ziplock baggies stuffed with sandwiches, every last one of which was baloney.

Marvin didn't know it, but he was being watched, observed. Several of the men sharing the den with him noted how he passed on the entrée of the evening. They had previously discussed the fact that he'd been standoffish and reluctant to become a functioning part of the group.

Eventually, he was forced to account for his presence among them. Minutes after the remnants of their meals had been collected, Marvin smelled the most rancid odor brushing by his face. He groaned sorely, holding his hand over his mouth and nose. Tears filled his eyes when they began to burn. Both of the young men sat closely together, glaring at the man on the toilet, the one who'd taken their sandwiches for his own as a penalty for disturbing his rest. It was the strangest thing, Marvin thought, when they were summoned to the raisin's throne to provide amusement while he used the facilities.

“Go on and make me laugh now that I done ate,” he commanded them with a broad, majestic gesture. They didn't have the energy or nerve to defy him, despite his cruel and unusual request. Incredibly, they belted out the lyrics of one rap song after the next, while holding their noses. Marvin, viewing the spectacle, was opposed to the way both men had been degraded for sport. It was just plain wrong he reasoned, and he'd be willing to risk his health before giving in like them.

“Hey, you!” the big man yelled in his direction. Marvin didn't look his way so he yelled a second time. “Hey, you, college boy! Yeah, I can tell 'cause you think you're too good for pimp steak! Come over here.”

Marvin looked at the man with his pants gathered around his ankles, then at the others betting he'd do as he was told. “What you want with me, man?” he shouted back, buying time more than anything else. He'd already decided he was going all right, but he had to make it appear that he had a choice in the matter.

“Right now, I just want to rap with you,” the big man answered, with his words trailing off at the end. Before he'd explained what might be up for discussion later on, Marvin dragged his feet across the cell floor.

Avoiding eye contact, Marvin coughed and sputtered. “Hmmm…What is it, man?”

“I've been wondering something every since you got put in here with us. What'd did they get you for? I mean, a clean-cut fella like you couldn't have been doing too much of nothing to get locked up on a Sunday afternoon.” The begrudging frown Marvin wore then caused the “king for a day” to chuckle. “Man, don't be shame. They got all of us in here for something. You the onliest one we don't know what for.”