Chapter 7
Tammy sat in her bed with her laptop, searching for jobs on the Internet. The kids were asleep, so she used this time wisely, knowing how difficult it could be to do anything while the kids were awake. A full-time job was needed, and not just any full-time job, but a good job with benefits.
She quickly learned that she needed to have a trade or even some college education, which she didn’t have. It was only a year ago that she had gotten her GED, and she got it by the skin of her teeth.
“Who da hell is it this early in the morning?” she mumbled while looking over at her phone blaring on the nightstand next to her bed. “Hello!” she answered.
“Damn, bitch! What you doin’?” Falisha replied as she looked through her bedroom window blinds at Lamar carrying all of his car washing supplies back into his house.
“What do you want, Falisha?” Tammy shot back playfully as she continued to look at her computer screen.
“I need you to ride wit’ me to go see my brother. The feds sent his ass all the way out to Pennsylvania to a jail called Canaan or some shit like that,” Falisha said, frustrated about the recent move.
Falisha’s brother had been down for almost eight years now and was wrapping up his bid. But a recent fight got him kicked out of Butner, the jail he was in, which was closer to home. Falisha used to go see him at least twice a week when he was in Butner, but now with a six-to eight-hour drive to the new jail, she’d be lucky to make it up there once a month.
“Girl, I can’t go out to no damn Pennsylvania. Besides, I have to go see Chris tomorrow. You know I’m there every week to see my boo,” Tammy shot back. “And how in da hell did Mac get sent all the way out there?” she asked.
“You know the feds will send you anywhere. I had to go online to find out how da hell to get there,” Falisha said as she walked over to her bed. “Shit, you better get a head start and find out where they’re gonna send Chris’s ass. They got this Web site where they let you know everything, from where he’s at to when his earliest release date will be,” Falisha explained.
“Well, what’s the Web site? ’Cause I’m on my laptop right now,” Tammy asked out of curiosity.
“It’s FBOP.com. All you have to do is type in his name and register number, and that’s it,” Falisha said.
Tammy wasted no time typing in his register number. It took a few seconds, but in an instant, Chris’s information popped up on the screen clear as day.
“You see it?” Falisha asked, breaking the silence on the phone.
“Yeah. Hold on, girl. I’m reading,” Tammy replied, looking at the screen.
When she got down to Chris’s earliest release date her jaw dropped. She had to go back and check to see if it was her Chris, and not somebody else by mistake. There he was: Christopher Douglas, born March 3, 1990. He was the only one in the federal system with that name and date of birth.
“Yo, let me call you back,” Tammy said into the phone, and hung up before Falisha could even respond.
The earliest projected release date for Chris was June 22, 2020, which was seven years from now. Tammy honestly didn’t have any idea that he was looking at all that time. He had told her that he only had another year and a few months to go. He was lying the whole time, and she couldn’t figure out for the love of God why he would do something like that.
The tears began pouring out of her eyes at the thought of his release date. It was hard enough on her as it was, but to have to go through another seven years without Chris was like torture.
The tears poured out even more as she began to think about the kids. Sinniyyah would be seven years old by the time he came home, and Anthony would be eleven.
So many thoughts ran through Tammy’s mind. Tomorrow, on the visit, Chris was going to have some explaining to do, and Tammy wasn’t in the mood for any bullshit.
* * *
Lisa ran all the way from the store back to the cabin at top speed. That, along with dousing her head with a bottle of spring water, gave her the effect like she had been running for a while. A little water under her armpits and some in the front of her sweatpants really made it look convincing.
When she got to the cabin, the front door flung open before she could even get up the steps. Ralphy stood at the entrance with fury in his eyes. Lisa leaned over and put her hands on her knees like she was tired from the jog. She played it cool, not looking suspicious or nervous.
“Where da fuck was you at? I been up since seven-thirty waiting on you to come back!” Ralphy snapped.
Again Lisa just kept her cool. She sat down on the steps for a moment, faking like she had to catch her breath and acting like she didn’t notice his attitude. She looked at the cheap watch she had bought and saw that it was 9:05. “Baby, you gotta run this trail with me tomorrow. It’s so beautiful out there. It runs along the side of a creek for about four miles, and the scenery is so amazing!” she said, remembering the details that the clerk at the store described them to her. She began walking up the steps, still huffing and puffing like she was tired.
Ralphy was so mad at first that he didn’t realize how wet her shirt was until she said something about running. At this point he was convinced that she was telling the truth about the whole running thing, but he was still mad, mainly because he was more worried about her safety and well-being than anything. “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you wake me up?” he barked.
“I didn’t want to wake you because you looked so peaceful lying there,” she said, walking up to him and wrapping her arms around his waist. “Oh! Plus, I had to go see my other husband down the road!” she dangerously joked, seeing that he was buying everything else.
He reached up and placed his hand on the back of her head, grabbed a fistful of hair, and pulled her head back so that she looked up at him.
“Hmmmm! Just how I like it, daddy!” Lisa moaned while looking up at him with lust in her eyes.
“Don’t get fucked up!” Ralphy shot back, looking down the road toward the other log cabins in the distance.
Lisa didn’t want him looking too hard, so she leaned in and softly kissed his neck, knowing that he would turn his attention back to her. She pushed him back into the cabin and closed the door behind them as she continued kissing him.
His attitude and anger slowly started to dissipate, and before he knew it, Lisa was peeling off her sweaty clothes. “Come get in the shower with me,” she said in a seductive manner, leading Ralphy to the bathroom.
Lisa was slicker than a can of oil, but what she did was typical among women who cheated on their spouses. Never in a million years could men cheat as well as women. It would never happen. A woman’s thought process was on a whole other level of play. Most of the time if they ever did get caught, it was because they wanted to get caught, whereas when men got caught, it’s because they were sloppy.
The most dangerous tool a woman could possess in this world was the power of the pussy. It literally short-circuited the brains of men daily. That’s the reason why Ralphy was joining Lisa in the shower, and thrusting his dick inside of her without the slightest clue that another nigga just got finished having his way with her less than eight hours ago. At that moment, all he was worried about was getting his dick wet, and that was all fine and dandy as long as it kept the attention off the reason why Lisa had been missing for half the night.
* * *
Falisha came sashaying out of the house and right across the street to where Lamar was cleaning out the trunk of his car. He didn’t even have to look her way to know that she was approaching. The house shoes skipping across the street gave her up; that and the cracking sound of the gum she had in her mouth. She walked right over and leaned up against the back end of the car.
“What do you want, Falisha?” Lamar asked, not really in the mood to be playing the flirting game.
“Don’t be talking to me like that!” she responded, throwing a playful punch at his arm.
He flinched and smiled at her, then threw a T-shirt at her that he took out of the trunk. He tried his best not to pay any attention to her body, but it was hard considering the fact that all she had on was a tank top and a pair of spandex shorts. Too much skin was showing for him to ignore.
“I need a favor from you,” Falisha said, throwing his T-shirt back in the trunk.
“What? The almighty Falisha needs a nobody like me to do something for her?” he joked.
“Boy, shut up! I need you to ride out to the prison with me to go see my brother.”
“Who, Mac?” Lamar asked. “He still out in . . . um . . .”
“No, he’s not out in Butner. They moved his ass to Pennsylvania. Some jail called Canaan,” she replied.
“Pennsylvania? Got damn, shawty! That’s like an eight-hour drive,” Lamar shot back. “Who’s supposed to be doing all that driving?”
Falisha began whining like a child. “I was gonna drive down there, but I was hoping you could drive back,” she said, walking around to the back of the car and standing right in front of him.
Lamar thought about it. This was going to turn into a mini trip. He did want to spend some time with her in order to get a few things established concerning the possibility of them being together. And the more he thought about it, the more perfect the idea sounded. On this trip, he would get a clear understanding of where they stood. It was going to be a make or break it for him. They were going to be either together or not, and if they weren’t going to be together, then this would be the last time he would try.
“You gonna owe me for this one,” he said, agreeing to take the ride with her. “And I’m not paying for the hotel this time!” He smiled, closing the trunk of his car.
“Thank you, boo!” Falisha cried out, throwing her arms around his neck.
She then got up on her tiptoes and reached up and kissed Lamar. Her soft lips pressed up against his, making his dick get hard. She didn’t even realize what she had done until her feet landed flat on the ground.
They both stood there for a moment looking into each other’s eyes. Falisha couldn’t believe that she just publicly showed affection to a man. That rarely ever happened. She even cut her eyes in a shy manner to see if anybody had seen her. Luckily, nobody was out there, and as she walked back across the street to her house, Lamar grabbed a handful of his dick as he watched her thick ass switch from side to side. The trip to Pennsylvania was gonna be worth it!