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The day after my doctor’s appointment, I was itching to tell everyone who would listen the news of my little bundle of joy that was on the way. I’d already called my mother to tell her, along with a host of other family members. I hadn’t gotten around to telling Gladys and the two most important people, Shayla and Titus. Pretty much, I was sick and tired of tiptoeing around Shayla, and I was way past ready to deliver the news to my beloved Titus. I had dialed his cell phone more than a few times in the past few days with no answer. Although I knew that he was dealing with the pressing issues that he had with Big Shirley, all of the violence directed in his direction, and attending to his wife, the information that I had to put in his ear would top it all.
After the fifth unanswered call to his cell in the past hour, I decided to leave a voice message. “Titus, baby, I really need to talk to you. I have some great news for you… for us. Be safe out there, babe, and call me as soon as you can.”
I pressed END on my cell phone, plopped down onto my bed, and rubbed my stomach. There is really a growing baby inside of me, I thought, smiling at the reality of carrying Titus’ child. My smile only faded when I thought about my best friend. I thought of all of the memories that we shared, all of the times that we had went shopping together, worn each other’s clothes, popped popcorn at three in the morning, or fixed each other’s hair for a date. All of those precious memories flashed through my mind as I contemplated sending Shayla a text message to let her know that I was pregnant with her husband’s baby. Even with all of the happiness I was feeling, along with the blessing growing inside of me that I wanted to share with the world, I didn’t have the courage to dial her number to deliver the words that would devastate her life as she knew it woman to woman. But as my hand traveled over the contours of my stomach, I came to the realization that I had a bigger priority than Shayla to worry about now. I had to think of the baby. I had to send her the text and let her know, so that Titus and I could effectively start our life together. Of course I would have rather have told T before Shayla, but if he was out of contact, I couldn’t wait forever. The sooner the better, as they say.
“Oh, well, here goes nothing,” I whispered into the quietness of my bedroom. I pulled out my Blackberry and composed the message that I knew would impact my friend’s life in a massively negative way. I felt a feeling that I hadn’t felt during all of the nights of hot passion and morning quickies I’d had with her husband – guilt.
Dear Shayla,
I want you to believe me when I say that I truly hate to inform you of something of this magnitude in a text message, but I really don’t think I can talk to you about this right now. Titus and I are in love; we really are. I want you to know that I still love you like a sister, BUT I love Titus (and always will) in a way that I have never loved another person. I hope it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that he and I are having a baby together. I just found out that I was pregnant, and he is definitely the father. I hope that in some way we can find a way to reconcile our friendship, so that you can be in the baby’s life as a Godmother. We always said that when we each had children that we would be each other’s children’s Godmother. I don’t want the fact that this is Titus’ child to chang
e that. I do regret that things turned out the way that they did, but as you once said, we can’t help who we love. Titus and I will be together in the end. I know that for sure. I wish you all the best. Always, Rhonda.
P.S. Call me when you are ready to talk about this.
I pressed SEND on my phone without a moment’s hesitation, and the message went off into text messaging oblivion, soon to arrive on my ex-best friend’s cell phone exposing all of my dirty little secrets. I was comforted by the thought of the wholesome honesty and purity that would grow from this one action. No more lies. No more games. No more frontin’. Everything was on the line for all involved to take note, deal with it, and hopefully move on peacefully. I exhaled a sigh of relief as the message uploaded and cleared my cell phone’s screen. At that moment, my complete hand was exposed, but I was keeping it real with my sister. Wasn’t I?
Suddenly, I sat up on the edge of the bed and felt like I was getting a little lightheaded. The air seemed to be filling my lungs too slowly to provide oxygen to my brain as fast as I needed it. I felt my heart pounding like a bass drum in my chest. My eyes grew wide as I looked over at the Blackberry in a panic anticipating her response. She didn’t send me one.
There was no turning back now. The message had been sent and delivered. No matter how I tried to console myself with good feelings and beliefs, I knew that I had unequivocally let my friend down. Some old woman once told me that the truth would set me free, but at that very moment I begged to differ. I felt like a bird locked in a cage singing the chain gang blues, wishing, and hoping to one day be free of the sins I’d accumulated over the years. All of those nights I had laid in the dark with her man, enjoying the fruits of her labor, and not caring the least bit how my actions would affect her. I hadn’t even thought about all of the years that she had looked out for me when my own mother had tossed me aside.
With that thought, a feeling of utter shame came over me. My gaze fell to the floor, and I could feel my shoulders hunching up and down. I didn’t realize I was crying until uncontrollable tears soaked my shirt. Was I really crying about indulging in an affair that I craved so badly? Was Titus’ baby growing in my stomach a reason for sorrow? Was the message I’d just sent to my friend truly in the best interest of everyone involved? I thought sending her the message would make me feel better, but if that was true, why did I feel like I’d just been hit by a transfer truck?
Chapter 27
Titus
Lee County don’t be trippin’ once you hit the county! It was one month after I had gotten locked down in that hell hole of a jail cell, and I had gone through a hell of a lot of money on my books, with red tape, pre-trials, court hearings, and lawyer fees. Even though I had set myself up where my hands were practically clean of any actual murders or any proven drug deals, the DA was trying to stick every crime in the city from the last five years in my file. The cops, lawyers, and judges that I thought for sure I had in my pocket were all talking that same shit about their hands being tied. What had I paid them all of these years for? I made a memo to fire all of their fake people-in-high-places asses, like yesterday.
My lawyer that I’d been down with since day one, Klint Kasashki, eventually had to call in a slick cat attorney from Chicago to figure out the loopholes in my case. I realized that it wasn’t until the shit really hit the fuckin’ fan that you found out who you really had on your team, after all. It was only then that I finally was able to get out on a one-million-dollar bond. A million dollars! That bond put a serious dent in my cash flow that already seemed to be dwindling away due to some numbers from the streets that just were not adding up right since I’d been gone. Nevertheless, I was fresh out of the county and ready to get back to business.
When I was escorted up to the front to check out, I noticed my cousin, Jay, standing at the release counter to pick me up. I asked him, “What’s up, my nig? Yo, where is Lil’ Red?” Ever since the fiasco had taken place with Street and Big Shirley, I had sent word from lockup that my next-in-command, Lil’ Red, was supposed to be watching over my business. Now that the money had been funny, my change was strange, and that nigga hadn’t even shown up to scoop me from jail, I knew there was some serious business to take care of on the home front. It was back to the grind, showin’ niggas that a nigga like T wasn’t to be fucked with. These punks was always looking for any opportunity to mess with your paper and your power, and as Street had demonstrated, it didn’t take much to get them to betray you.
“He had some urgent business to take care of, so he sent me,” Jay said, looking as if he had something real serious on his mind. He avoided eye contact and tapped his cigarette box onto his hand. Taking out a cigarette, he lit it and took a long drag. As I looked at him suspiciously, he asked the woman behind the counter, “Is he good to go?” I was getting all kinds of bad vibes from my couzan, because he normally didn’t act funny like that. He knew I would be wanting some answers, but this wasn’t the time or the place.
She ignored him and continued to punch the keys on her keyboard. Once she said, “You’re free to go, Mr. Wilson,” I immediately asked Jay, “What kind of business could Lil’ Red have had to take care of that he couldn’t come and pick me up?”
Jay simply shrugged as we walked out of the building to the car. This shit was smellin’ real foul. Somebody was going to come up with some answers in this piece. I hopped in the driver’s side of my SC10 and peeled out of the courthouse parking lot with a gang of unanswered questions dangling in the air. I had so much business on my mind that I didn’t know which direction to go in first.
I guessed that the first thing I needed to do was find Lil’ Red and find out what was good with the business, like my paper, and then collect all the loose money that was floating around with my generals. It wasn’t going over my head that Jay sat there on the passenger seat, quietly looking out of the window puffing on that cigarette like it was the last one ever made. He was a ticking time bomb, but what the fuck was on his mind?
I looked over at him for a good minute once we hit the stop light, and I knew that he was feeling uncomfortable. Wasn’t no way that he didn’t feel my eyes boring into his skull. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the light turn green. The car behind me blared their horn, then skidded out from behind my car and shot past us on the left. I sat right where I was, with my foot pressing hard on the brake, looking dead at Jay. He looked up at the light, then quickly looked at me with questions behind his eyes. I returned his look with one of my own. We wasn’t going nowhere fast until I got some goddamn answers. As far as I was concerned, we could sit there all motha fuckin’ day. My cuz knew that I wasn’t up for no funny business type shit. He’d better start talking fast.
Finally, he took a deep breath. One last drag off of his cigarette, and Jay let go of what had been bothering him. “Shayla is gone, man.”
He had been watching my house for me while I was in jail, as he had been instructed to do. I didn’t know if someone from the families of the men who had gotten shot during the Big Shirley incident would take it upon themselves to retaliate against my family while I was locked up, so I couldn’t be too careful. In the process of watching my place, he had noticed that Shayla had moved her things out of our home and wasn’t at my niece, Tanya’s, house either. Come to find out, he had just gotten word the day before, through a good source, that she had an apartment in Columbus and some Spanish mother fucker had helped her move.
I paused, taking in the silence for a minute. Jay looked back out of his window.
“Yeah, right, my nigga! That’s not a good attempt at telling a joke.” I cracked a little giggle, just to make him feel good for trying to amuse me. I started the car rolling forward again, turning my head forward towards the road. I kept waiting for him to get to the punch line, or at least tell me that if she had moved, she was smoking crack, as well. I knew good and well that my wife had to be on something serious if she thought that the news of her letting some random dude pack her up and move her to another ci
ty was going to go over without repercussions. That’s when I remembered that she’d only been to the jailhouse to see me twice the whole time I was in county. I didn’t find it too strange at the time, because I had told her not to worry about coming to visit me and to hold herself together until I got out. I assured her that everything would be all right and told her to keep living her life. Little did I know that living her life apparently meant living it – without me.
On the other hand, once Rhonda had found out where I was, she was up there every chance she got for visitation. One of my boys had hipped her to what had happened once I had thought about it enough to tell them to inform her. I knew that she would have been worried about a nigga, and I was right. She told me that she had been trying to call and text me for weeks to tell me the big news.
That was one thing about Rhonda. I knew that she cared, and she always kept it 100. When I thought about it, we’d been fuckin’ around for years, and she’d never been with another nigga, as far as I’d known. No matter what bullshit I had thrown at her, she had been there for a nigga – even though I was married and always kept Shayla at the forefront of all of my thoughts. I had to give her credit for that. I never had to second-guess where Ronnie’s loyalty lied. In fact, I probably would have been more surprised if Jay had been telling me that she was seeing someone else while I was in lockdown. Wasn’t that some shit?
I realized that I was so caught up in the drama about me and Rhonda’s baby that I hadn’t even thought about what Shayla was up to. I was just happy that Shayla wasn’t aware of that shit. I don’t know what I would have done if my wife had found out that we were expecting a child while I was away in jail, not able to comfort her and let her know that I was…
