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Authors: Karen Williams

BOOK: Thug in Me
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As the phone rang, all I thought to myself was what a good woman I had. I couldn't wait to hear her sweet voice.
About three rings the phone clicked on. Just as I anticipated hearing Toi say hello, I almost dropped the phone when a male's deep, husky voice said, “Yeah?”
Without thinking, I slammed the phone down.
Chapter 11
If that shit wasn't enough to kill how happy and hopeful I had been feeling over the past couple months, the fact that she would no longer take any more of my mother's calls had us both worried. Especially since my mom had said that the house had been sold and Toi was now power of attorney. Although she had promised my mother she would drop the money off to the lawyer so that he could resume my case, Toi never did. In fact, she was weeks past the day she was supposed to drop it off. Without the money, my lawyer refused to do anything to help me further with my case. My mother went to Toi's apartment to talk to her and the manager said that she had moved. Calhoun said he had not seen her either. As stupid as this may sound, my main concern was for her safety and the baby's. I prayed that they were okay. Calhoun blamed it on the pregnancy and said women were fucking psychos when they were carrying a child and not to trip. I tried not to but I started to feel that there was more to it. I got that
more
on a surprise visit.
Regular visits were on Saturdays and Sundays. My mom only came on Sundays because she had to work the rest of the week. It was also expensive as hell for my mom to get out there. So I was surprised when I was told I had a visit on a Saturday.
When I saw Toi seated at the table, I couldn't help but smile because I hadn't seen her in four and a half months. She still looked as fine as ever. That was the weak part of me. That part of me that loved and lusted after my woman. The other part of me was curious as hell as to what was going on, why no one could get in contact with her. Why another man answered the phone at her house.
As I pulled the chair out, I demanded, “Baby, what the fuck is going on?”
She pursed her lips, but remained silent.
“My mama said you ain't returned her calls. She went to your apartment and they said you moved. You didn't take the money to the lawyer and when I tried to call you a—”
My words trailed off when a man I had never seen before sat down next to her.
I narrowed my eyes at him. He was tall and lanky, brown skin with a long ponytail, a long white T-shirt and some jeans. He looked like a thug. I didn't know why he sat down next to Toi.
I looked from him to her. “Who the fuck is this?”
Toi didn't respond.
“What's happening, blood, my name is—”
My eyes stayed on Toi but to him I said, “Muthafucka, I'm talking to my woman.”
“I told you to wait for me outside!” she snapped at him.
I was losing control but I tried to stay calm.
“Toi. Listen to me. You talking to a man that has lost everything but my mama and you. I'm fighting for my life, baby. A life I know I'm going to get back. I don't care how long it takes me. Don't do this shit to me. Tell this muthafucka to get on so we can talk about this. I'll get over look the fact that you brought his ass here.
Whoever he is.
I'll even overlook the fact that he was most likely the one in your crib answering your phone the other day. Just tell him.”
My eyes pleaded with her.
I felt like I only had an inch to hold on to but I was trying. She was my baby and she was carrying my baby. That's all that mattered. If she was scared and ran to another man I could understand that and I could forgive her for it. But I couldn't lose her. Not now. I needed her love. I needed her help.
She wouldn't talk.
So he did.
“Since she ain't opening her muthafucking mouth, I guess I will. You been in here for a few months now and a woman has needs. I been taking care of those needs and I didn't come here to hear this crybaby shit, feel me? I'm just gonna tell you once and for all. My name is Keon and Toi is my woman now. She ain't your girl no more. She ain't gonna help you with no bullshit case that you ain't gonna beat anyway. Nigga, you guilty. Do your time. And you can't call the crib no more. She ain't going to see you so forget about that too. I got her on lock.”
He wrapped his arms around her on that part, when he said he had her “on lock.”
My expression was murderous as I took all of this in. What this nigga was telling me. What Toi wouldn't say.
I glared at him. “What about my baby?”
He laughed.
“I had an abortion, Chance,” Toi finally said.
That was a tough blow to recover from.
I blinked to stop my eyes from watering.
“Bitch. You killed my baby?” I whispered
Keon chuckled. “Watch ya mouth, nephew. Only nigga that gets to call her a bitch is me.”
I ignored him.
“Where's my money?”
“What money?” That was him.
Toi offered no explanation.
“So you just gonna keep my shit, Toi?”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
I took a deep breath and shouted, “Toi!”
“She ain't—”
“Shut the fuck up! Toi, baby, listen to me. You killed my baby and you don't wanna be with me and you wanna be with this muthafucka. Fine. It hurts 'cause I love you, baby, and probably always will. But if you take that money you are killing any chance I have of getting out of here. Don't do that to me, baby. Give me my money,” I pleaded.
“She ain't got shit.”
“Toi?”
“Nigga.” His teeth were clinched. “She gave it to me. I'm head of household now. And I bought some bricks with it.”
Without thinking, I lunged over the table, toward the dude. Toi leaped from her chair and scurried away in fear.
The muthafucka had the nerve to laugh at me. Laugh at my anger, laugh at my pain.
I managed to get my arms around his neck and started choking the life out of him. I was then grabbed by two guards, who attempted to restrain me.
“You punk-ass muthafucka!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
They pulled my hands from around his neck but not without a struggle.
As they tried to pull me away, I struggled against them and kicked at the table.
So this became my life.
Toi had done me so dirty. I thought for sure I was going to wake up to that being a bad dream. But I didn't. This was the reality of my situation. She didn't want me anymore and she didn't want my baby. Why she had to go further and take my money, I will never know. I just knew the shit hurt. All of it. She crushed me. I always thought that we had been together so long that I could trust her with my life. Despite myself, despite the pain and anger I felt, I still loved her. Even after what she did, part of me wanted to call or write her and beg her back, forgive her for seeing someone else and killing my baby. But I didn't. I simply attempted to let it go. Calhoun was pissed and said she never came back to the Springdales and that he had no clue where she had ran off to. My mother was lost when it came to her as well. I had to accept the fact that she fucked off my money. All of it.
Months sped by, adding a year to the four and a half months I had already done. In that time frame I had got down with so many dudes to prove myself that the shit was ridiculous. I learned new ways to fuck a nigga up, that's for sure. And I was dirty with my shit because I just didn't care. I was gonna fight you until I knocked your ass out and I was gonna leave some type of memory of my ass-whipping even if I had to rake your face with my nails or bite a piece of your skin. I didn't give a fuck. This was my way of surviving, becoming a monster, and that's what the fuck I was. It was hard for me even to face my mother. Other changes were the way I looked. I felt like I had aged some years. I had also gotten bigger, not for any type of look or attraction but because if I lost too much weight and got too skinny
niggas would think they could take my asshole. So far that hadn't happened. That shit you see in the movies about niggas getting raped was true and I didn't want it to be me.
Racial tension was constant. The segregation and racial shit wasn't just reserved for the inmates. You saw the guards doing the shit too. The white guards looked out for the white inmates, you saw the Mexican guards looking out for the Mexican inmates, and you saw the black guards turning their back on the blacks. It was crazy. In here, race always mattered. Being in here, I learned that my life depended on who I congregated with 'cause niggas were always watching. Shanks were made here and drugs were being brought in here as well. They could take pretty much anything from the top of canned goods from the kitchen, the razors we used to shave, a paper clip, a fucking toothbrush, and make a shank. As far as the drugs, sometimes family and an inmate's women brought them in. We on the outside tend to think that the powers that be were smarter than the criminals. Being in prison, I saw that the criminals were always smarter and way more sophisticated. The game was always about watching which guards were smashers, which meant the staff was no-bullshit and would fuck your shit and your world up, the guards who were new booty, which meant they didn't know shit about shit when it came to prison, and the staff who were weak or just plain out didn't care. Half the time, guards brought the dope in. I knew for a fact that Roscoe had blacks, Mexicans, and whites slinging his dope for him in prison. Another crazy part of prison were the punks, which is what we called the openly gays that looked like actual women! What I thought was strange about them was their preference when it came to the inmates. They did not fuck each other; they went after the straight-looking men. Some of the female guards also carried on relationships with some of the inmates that went as far as letting the inmates fuck them.
Every time I turned around somebody was fighting. They even had those skinhead, Aryan Nation dudes in there and every time I passed one of them, they gave me a look like they wanted to shank me on sight. I gave their evil, hateful ass the same look.
In the time I had been there, I watched Tyson get into it with one of them and he fucked his ass up. The crazy part was that dude was way bigger than Tyson. Dude was so fucked-up from the hits Tyson was giving to him that he laid on down in the shower, knocked out. After the fight, whenever he saw Tyson he gave him a murderous look and called him a nigger. Guards always acted like they didn't hear it. Tyson did too. He never responded. He didn't want any trouble in there. Hell, he didn't want that fight that day, but it was more self-defense than anything. Tyson always tried to stay clear of prison bullshit. So did I.
After the fight, Tyson was stressing hard because any month he would have his appointment with the committee to determine if he would get released. He was scared that the fight would hurt those chances. He warned me not to ever let anyone know when you're getting released or they would “smoke your date.” I didn't know what that meant so he told me. “They will start shit with you to get you to fight or they plant some shit on you so you don't go home. Sometimes they go as far as trying to force you to murk someone. Haters. So if I do get released I'm going to play that shit off like ain't nothing happened. And you gotta play along.”
Tyson tried to get me to do stuff there to get my mind off my situation but I always said no. Much of my day was spent sleeping and working out; that was pretty much it. Working out had to be creative too 'cause prisons no longer had weights. I sometimes worked out with Tyson. We used our sheets and towels, rolled up our mats to work out. Those items worked like any good pair of weights. Jail taught you how to improvise damn near on your whole life.
Tyson did everything from working in the laundry room to going to church services, Bible study, and playing sports on the yard. When he wasn't doing these things he was in the library reading up on different legal stuff and bringing books back to our cell for us to read. I never did. But he was really pressing the issue of getting out of there. I didn't think I'd ever see light of day again. My pessimistic attitude didn't stop him from trying to get me involved in the stuff he did, like pushing me to file an appeal. With the fact that I no longer had money for a lawyer, I thought maybe that was a shot for me. But when my public pretender—whom I eventually begin to understand why so many inmates called their public defenders “public pretender”—finally answered my calls, he broke it down to me how appeals worked. According to him, you have to have some type of evidence that you are innocent that was not included into the first trial. I had none of that. He also warned me that it could take up to two years before an appeals lawyer even responded to me. He also said that the majority of appeals that are filed are denied. Still, I was going to push and try anyway. I wrote a four-page letter detailing my whole life, how I had never been in trouble with the law, how I was innocent and would be willing to take a lie-detector test. I even let Tyson read it. He tweaked some things and I submitted the letter. I told Tyson I had fears that it wouldn't be approved. He encouraged me to stay positive and not to listen to my public pretender: He worked for the system, not really for me. I listened to Tyson and disregarded the negative words of my public pretender.

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