They were all on their knees, hands behind their heads, and guns in their faces my brothers from another mother arrested for sales of narcotics and the murder of Chyna and Mortez Payne . I stood in the cut as the D.E.A and F.B.I at five o’clock in the morning, snow falling heavy, the sharp wind cut against my face, my eyes water, drops of snot froze on my face. As they knocked down the door with a battering ram I jumped, looked around, and cursed under my breath.
Dartes yelled, “Get the fuck down you're all under arrest,maggots. “ In the air I could smell breakfast sausage cooking, the scent of bread baking, and the mixture of the chemical called water being smoked.
Like roaches they all attempted to scatter but each officer grabbed them putting their guns to their temples, slamming them on the ground, stepping on their back aim and ready to shoot. Twenty-two men including our leader were caught red handed drugs, weapons, and money all over the place. I sold their soul to the devil for Chyna, Mortez, and Grace. I play pretend , became a grimey snitch ass bitch who is preparing them to be eaten by the pigs.
For weeks I sat down with Dartes and his partner giving away their truth with details, videos, and audio recordings of crimes committed. My prize for my snitching immunity from ever spending a day in jail and a bus ticket out of Syracuse.
Snow fell heavily covering them , some of them shivered with anger, while the young heads wondered who snitched them out and began plotting revenge. The others thought of how they messed up their lives and the outcome of never seeing the streets again. Detectives Dartes and his whole tribunal brought out three boxes of weapons, 4c iced tea cans full of heroin, water, cocaine,and pounds of weed. One by one each were read their Miranda rights,thrown in the van, shackled, another part of my history, and my make shift family gone. Like all my foster family they are on borrowed time.
I couldn't let my mission be stopped and I had to find my murderer and justice had to happen for Chyna to rest in peace. I swing the duffle bag with all I owned to my name on my shoulder , and money from a job I was about to do. I am a free man but my mind is still held captive. Deaths is around me, guilt smothers me and I’m bound by not being able to save Chyna and Ms Grace. I made a promise to never let another woman die, to lose her soul without attempting to save her. Their deaths rest heavy on my head and heart . It would be in honor of Chyna, her son Mortez, Grace and redemption of my sins. To find my murderer and make her tell me why she didn't want to raise the child she birthed.
Chyna is dead because of me, the goons think she snitched on them so they decided to kill her and her son. She told them it was her who talked to the Feds, they took her to the back of the projects brutally raped her, shot her son in the face and then murdered her by brutal torture and sticking a hot curling iron in her womb. My crime is I did nothing to save her life, and I did nothing to save Montez they were punished for my act of treason. I stood amongst them, tears running down my face and when I found the courage to speak. I attempted to save them, let me be buried and she put her hand over my mouth.
She whispered in my ear,
“You are suppose to be here, Brick. Out of all of us you can make it out of the hood I was destined to die. I told on them too but I got caught. Don't save me just promise to be somebody great. I rather die than live in dishonor. I did this to myself, Brick not you. ” She kissed my cheek.
“I love you brother.I don't want to live.”
I allowed shit to happen to let her die, her son die and to do nothing makes me a creep.
Grace bought drugs from my friends and I allowed it for fear of losing her. My silence murdered them and that is the biggest crime committed by any free man. Life imprisonment of the mind is the worst form of incarceration no key can set you free. I carry their death all over me and though I don't mess with God like that I need to save another woman from ruining her life.
The ground has thick patches of ice that is dirty except around me it is melted around my feet in deep puddles I am drowning in. Others are slipping and sliding to their destination, to their warm homes , and though this is my hood I don't have a home. I never knew my blood family. I carry a birth and death certificate certifying I cheated death at least once.
The one person who was loyal and loved me as I am is gone and I miss her like crazy. I can admit I had mad love for Chyna she was all I had in this cruel world after Grace passed away.Angry, Reckless, and wild like most of us just trying to find a place that sees you as a welcomed guest. We both came in the Parkersburg home and our first encounter was fighting off her fat ass horny sons trying to sodomize her and me. After that she saw me as her big brother but I always wanted to love her. Chyna always said it was safer for me to be her best friend than lover.
The day she was brutally murdered I held her cold body, cradle her and her son in my arms. The harshness of life wouldn't allow me to cry, to act and save their life all in the name of fear. I took my hand and closed their eyes. Her son held the Transformer I gave him for Christmas to his chest and I just held and rocked them. The next day I went to Officer Dartes and told him about the crimes committed.
On some real shit I warned her about the dangers of messing with Trey dollar would lead to her demise. I begged her to step back because once the gang found out she would be dead. Chyna violated the code sleeping with the enemy fucking with Trey dirty.. My snitching was for her justice,and so she could rest. So I could leave Syracuse and leave behind the past a dead man still living. I walk two miles to my beginning the only real home, the block that was predominantly white was now flooded with refugees from Somalia. The wind cut my cheeks, the sound of Grace laughter and reading to me Good night Moon echoes in my head. She taught me how to read and reminded me education would save my life. She ain't never lied. Every Saturday we went to the library and just to read a book. Reading on many occasions kept me from being in jail. Sitting in the library kept me alive.
I stand in front of what used to be my home shingles had fallen off the house, the pale blue paint is chipped, the windows are broken, and yet memories of Ms. Grace still lives. Ms. Grace saved my life while I was left to die in a cold dark room for hours after my birth. She said I kept crying, moving, and it was only God who summoned her to pick me up. She said I grabbed her fingertip, she said my eyes were wide open and look like silver dollars. She said I was her miracle baby on the same table lined up with eleven other babies dead. I kicked, a soft cry, and she said she couldn't leave me.
She was my mother but would never allow me to call her Mom. To Grace it was a disrespect to my birth mother.I always thought it was because I was black and she was white. Grace a small woman like Sophia from golden girls, grey hair, and a passion for planting gardens and baking cookies. The slack she received from her husband Rick who called me Nigger boy. Yet, she never mistreated me because of her cruel husband. She would argue, “ his name is Jensen not nigger boy.” She endured endless abuse by him just for me.
He eventually left because he said it was an embarrassment that she chose a nigger boy over him. The decline shortly after began, I saw the change in her when she stayed in her room more, always going to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Breakfast consisted of ten pills, a glass of wine, and off to work. She was addicted to Vicodin, and Percocet and on several occasions I'd find her passed out on the couch. I begin taking care of her at nine years old, fed her tea and toast. She would eventually lose her job at the hospital and then it was her smoking Water a cigarette dipped in embalming fluid.
When I asked her why she said, “To forget my wrong doings.”
Later, I would find out it was because every day guilt ate at her for all the babies she assisted with killing. They haunted her in her dreams, their crying lingered in her ears while awake. Rows and rows of babies still alive watching them take their last breath took a toll on her. Innocent lives and her attempt of calling each mother who uttered the cold words, “let him or her die.” . She only saved me.
Her words to me every day,
“Jensen you have purpose babies don't survive and live healthy after a botched abortion.The only birth defect is the solution change the color of your eyes. No cerebral palsy, no seizures or nothing you are destined for something great. God chose you and I don't know why but he did to do something for him. You have to fulfill God’s purpose.”
It was her last words before dying but what the hell is purpose?
So what the fuck is my purpose on this earth? Was it to suffer and live in the foster care system living from home to home? Being abused time & time again mentally, physically and emotionally. To watch people I love die over and over again while I just exist versus living. What’s the hell is purpose when your murderer told them to let you die? How do I exist in a cruel, cold and mean world as an orphan three times over?
I blow into my hands, pull my headphones up to my ears, and try to calculate the reason to even find my murderer. I was suppose to be dead on many of occasions bullets meant to send me to hell missed me by an inch. A gang of men with guns ready to lullaby my ass and the sound of sirens, a police car, and they left me alive. I'm Still here but until this day I don't know why he keeps sparing my life.
I hear his silver Suv pull up breaks my train of thought, he parks in front of me, his signature of all black with leather baseball cap, his badge dangling from the rear view mirror, and the leader of Truce task force.
Detective Dartes stands next to me, his face beak red, wool hat pulled over his head, long leather coat, cigar in his mouth, and black leather gloves. He had a pointy nose, green eyes like money, a black mole on his cheek. He pulls on the cigar twice, spits on the grown and coughs.
“You did the right thing what they did to Chyna and Montez was sickening. The truth set you free.”
“I did shit to people. I paralyzed a few men, shot my gun to kill, sold drugs, and you choose to let me walk the streets. It don't make sense to me.”
“You didn’t murder an innocent woman and her child and you have a purpose to fulfill, son.You cooperated, your not like the rest of them. Grace raised you right until she no longer could. You adapted to your environment to survive. Street rats don't spend endless hours in the library reading about Nat Turner, Martin, Malcolm, the King's and Queens of Africa. You’re smart and for some reason your life is worth saving.”
“I'm just an educated criminal, like I said I did some ruthless shit to survive in these streets so why give me a pass?.” He cut his eye at me and raised his eyebrow.
. He was aware of my crimes, my name wasn’t Brick for nothing. I paralyzed more than enough dudes for disrespecting my gang. I shot more than enough guns and bodied enough men before my twenty first birthday. My saving is his connection with Grace. His love for his sister who he lost to drug abuse.
“ I owe Grace and I need you to use that bus ticket to get the hell out of the ‘cuse and start fresh, Brick. Dude, you don't get it I could have thrown your ass in jail a long time ago but I knew you deserve a life better than a fucking jail cell.”
He pulled on the cigar, his lips chattered, and he coughed.
“Help me find my murderer it is all I ask of you. My life is valuable speech don't mean a damn thing because I know one person who doesn't believe that shit.”
“Your bus ticket is taking you to California, it’s a keep your ass out of jail for the rest of your life pass. I put you on the bust to clear your head from all the madness. Get some clarity and think more about starting your security firm. I have friends who’ll help when you're ready. You’ll have the money after doing the job for Mrs. E. You can go a straight path or get caught up in the gang shit in Compton.Your answer to where your murderer is in Los Angeles. Does she really matter she abandoned you?”
“I need an address and she matters because it is the only way I can move forward.”
“When you're on the bus I’ll give you her address. I made a promise to Grace to keep you alive and out of jail. You owe her your life and I am a man of my word. Now it is time to save your own life. You owe us.”
“Don’t treat me like a fucking charity case I helped you bust .357 mafia swift. You took down the leader, moved the drugs and water out of the projects. I made you a hero.If you gave a fuck about Grace you....” He cut me off and waved his cigar in the air.
“Grace was her own demise and we both know she didn't want to be saved. She is gone, Brick and it hurts but my sister made a choice. I need you to choose to save your ass because if one person gets wind you snitched your dead three times over.Brick dudes like you don't get a second chance at life. I suggest you take this opportunity and make something good out of yourself. You won't get another chance at freedom the next time I will arrest you if you come back to Syracuse.”
He pulled up his collar and walked away.
The cab pulled up, honk the horn three times, I get in and destination was California and to confront my murderer.