You're the One I Want (33 page)

“Don't pay any attention to her. She's just trying to get you off your game.”

“Tangela will say it was your idea if you get pinched by the cops. I know her. Look what she's done to me and Deanthony.” I could tell I was breaking Blue down by pouring the seed of suspicion in his ear like a poisonous elixir.

“Don't listen to her, Blue.”

“She'll roll on you if it means she won't get the needle.”

Just as Blue came for me, Deanthony tackled him to the floor, knocking the gun out of his hand and sending it skittering across the floor of Katiesha's garage. Before Tangela could react, I lunged at her, punching her in the face until it smudged with blood.

“This is for almost killing Kashawn, and this is for pretending to be my best friend, and, for what it's worth, this is for killing Katiesha, you cold-blooded, murdering bitch.” The last punch knocked Tangela unconscious. Just as Blue was about to hit Deanthony, I cold-cocked Blue as hard as I could in the head with the butt of the gun. “Deanthony, are you all right?”

Minutes later, the door of the shack flew open. “Freeze!” a cop yelled. “Ma'am, put down the weapon.”

“Don't shoot, that's my wife.” Kashawn broke past the cop. I dropped the gun to the floor when he took me into his arms.

“How did you know we were here?” Deanthony asked.

“I heard Bree talking to you on the phone about coming here. I saw her get in your SUV, so I followed y'all and called the police.”

“Thank God,” I said.

“They have everything Tangela said on tape.”

“All this is my fault,” said Deanthony. “If I hadn't have gone through with what that crazy bitch was planning, none of this would have happened. It's not worth losing my family over.”

Before I could react, Tangela grabbed the gun at my feet and shot Deanthony in the stomach. He collapsed into Kashawn's arms. He held his hand to the growing pool of blood that soaked his shirt. A cop shot Tangela in the leg, sending her crashing to the garage floor.

“Die, motherfucker, die!” She laughed.

“Stay with me,” Kashawn pleaded. Deanthony's eyes clamped shut, his body still.

Two Weeks Later

“Hey, you ready to get out of here?”

Deanthony was stuffing shirts and jeans into a small, flower-printed suitcase Ma let me borrow to put his clothes in. “I've
been
ready to go. You know I can't stand hospitals. Where's Ma?”

“At the house, cooking enough food to feed a village.”

“Fried chicken?”

“Ham, greens, black-eyed peas, biscuits, and two Dutch apple cheesecakes.”

“Damn, here I was getting used to all the weight I was losing, and Ma's going to put it right back on me.”

“I'm sure you won't miss the hospital food.”

“True. It will be nice to get a decent meal.”

“How are we feeling today?” Eboni, the RN, asked, rolling the wheelchair into Deanthony's room.

“Like I just walked off a battlefield, but if I get to take you home with me, I'm sure I will start feeling much better.”

“Don't pay any attention to him, Ms. Brooks.”

“I haven't yet.” Eboni smiled.

“Oh, my brother didn't tell you? I'm allergic to wheelchairs.”

“It's hospital procedure. Now sit down.”

“I love it when they're feisty.” Deanthony sat down in the wheelchair like he was told.

“Remember what Dr. Wilkinson told you about getting plenty of rest. Don't overdo it and don't pull your stitches.”

“Yes, Mama,” Deanthony teased.

Deanthony didn't speak much as we drove back to the house. “So how are you and Bree doing?” he finally asked.

“We're taking it one day at a time. Things aren't great, but they're good.”

“I'm glad, with everything that's happened, y'all have been able to patch things up.”

“She wanted to move out, but I recommended we seek counseling instead to help us cope with everything that has gone on to try to get things back on track. Neither one of us is perfect. We all have made mistakes.”

“What happened to Tangela?”

“She's laid up with a head wound. The bullet to her leg missed an artery. The police has round-the clock surveillance on her. Next stop: prison.”

“I hope they put her ass under the jail,” Deanthony said.

“Listen, I was going to wait until after dinner to tell everyone, but Bree and I are going to try and start a family.”

Deanthony smiled at the good news. “That's great, man. I say it's about damn time y'all gave me a niece or nephew to spoil.”

“Have you decided if you're going to stay here, or make another go at the acting thing in L.A.?”

“I really haven't put much thought into going back to Cali. Right now, I think I'm going to chill in Tallahassee for a while until I decide what to do. I'm done running away. It's time I face my problems head-on.”

I could smell the soul food before we even got to the house. Mama didn't even give me a chance to get to the door before she ran out in the driveway, an apron wrapped around her robust waist, her arms outstretched for a hug.

“Hey, Ma.”

She wrapped her arms around Deanthony in an embrace that seemed long-awaited. “Thank the good Lord.” Ma started crying.

“Come on now. Stop all that crying. This is a time to celebrate.”

We all sat down around a table of good-smelling food. I said grace, giving a special blessing to Uncle Ray-Ray and Edrick, the only daddy we knew as far as Deanthony and I were concerned. As the days, weeks, and months came and went, things between Deanthony and I got better. For the first time since Uncle Ray-Ray's passing, we were starting to become a family again.

I
didn't know what was worse: these damn handcuffs biting into my wrists, or the stench of this cop's bargain-bin cologne. Before a hearing, before being sentenced to death by a jury of my peers, I was going to die by this pig's putrid poodle juice.

“Hey, man, I'm not feeling so good. Can you let a window down?” He kept driving like he either couldn't hear me, or didn't want to. The smell was making my gut turn. “Hey, did you hear me? I need some air back here.”

“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled with venom in his tone. He looked at me from the rearview mirror with a grimace of annoyance.

“If I die on your watch, I don't need to tell you whose ass will be in a sling. Come on, sir, please, I need some air.”

The cuffs cut into my wrists as he jerked the wheel of the patrol car to the right, pulling off on the side of the road. “I'm about to give your ass something to whine about.” He got out, opened the backseat door, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out like I was a sack of dirty laundry.

“Ow, fuck, that hurts.”

“I would be whining too knowing that I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison. If it was up to me, I would round all you niggers up and execute your black asses.”

Damn, of all the pigs to end up with, I get some redneck racist motherfucker with a badge and an itchy trigger finger for black people.

“Better yet.” He took out his gun and pointed it against my left temple. “I can save the court and the hardworking taxpayers' money, and blow your nigger bitch brains out right here. Bury you in these woods like a dead dog.”

My heart was racing like a greyhound after a rabbit knowing that I was about to die by the hands of this Nazi bigot fuck. I had to think of something quick before he pulled the trigger.

“Please don't, I'm sorry.” He relaxed the barrel of his gun away from my head. “I'm sorry for insulting you.” I made out his name on the piece of rectangular chrome that was pinned on the left side of his chest.
Ofc. Dillon Conner.
“Please let me make it up to you.”

“And just what do you have in mind?”

Damn, his breath stank. Like he had drunk a shit and onions milkshake.

“I'm sure we can think of something.”

He ran the nose of the gun along my chest, between my breasts. Men and their predictabilities. Forever letting their dicks do the thinking. “So um…is it true what they say about black bitches: blacker the berry, sweeter the juice?” He smiled, exposing a set of butter-yellow teeth.

“Take off these cuffs and you can taste just how sweet my juice really is, baby.”

Pig Cop looked up and down the long stretch of road that was lit by the streetlights above us. “Let's go, but if you try anything, I will end your ass right here, and don't think I won't shoot a woman.” He took a set of keys from his belt, turned me around and undid the cuffs. The feeling was already starting to rush back to my fingers. With the help of his flashlight, he led the way along a graveled, narrow trail. “It's been a long time since I got some good head. Betcha those juicy lips of yours are gonna feel good around my dick. Bitch, I'm gonna skull-fuck you so hard, your mama's gonna feel it.”

The thought of sucking this hick's dick made me sick to my
stomach, but with the odds stacked against me, I had to do what he wanted. Had I known that I would be walking through the boonies in heels, I would have changed into a pair of raggedy-ass sneaks. But then again, I had no plan to get arrested for murder. “Right here is good. This is deep enough,” Officer Shit Breath said. He pulled me onto my knees. He towered over me like a giant. He undid the pants of his uniform and took out his dick. To my surprise, it was smaller than what a lady like me was used to.
I'd had cocktail shrimp in my mouth bigger than this,
I thought. “You like that, bitch?”

My first instinct was to laugh, but I held strong. “Damn, baby, it's big.”

“Think you can handle it?” he asked.

Sure, if it doesn't take a magnifying glass to find that circus peanut between your legs.
Officer Puny Peter stood with his hands on his waist, anxiously waiting to get his knob polished. When I drew in closer about to do the deed, the odor of sweat made my nose twitch in disgust. Not only was his dick small, but it wasn't clean, either. I ran my hands up alongside his legs. “It's all yours, baby,” he said. I felt the dense steel of Itty-Bitty Dicky's gun that rested idle in his holster. Just as I was about to put him in my mouth, I went for his piece. Before Shit Breath could react, I had it cocked and pulled the trigger. The sound from the shot echoed through the air. I got off my knees, holding the gun on him. He looked at me with a wide-eyed disbelief that a nigger bitch had gotten over on him. A thick stream of red flowed from his mouth, down the side of his face; the cold earth that was as hard as my heart, drank him in. I unloaded one more shot into him. The last one in his dome. I could have written a book on the shit I hated. Cops and bigots were at the top of my list. I tossed the gun into the bushes before making my way toward the opposite side of wherever the hell I was ready to begin anew.