Chapter XXIII - Tying up all the Loose Ends

The day after Anthony died, very early in the morning, a person from the Lions Club called me because Anthony had marked on his license he wanted to be an organ donor.  She was asking me all types of questions because they wanted to use his eyes which were 20/20 vision, his bone marrow and his heart.  As she asked me questions she came to one that stated, “Could he possibly have AIDS or STD’s?”  I told her, “With the crowd he hung around anything was possible.”  Because of the possibility he may have AIDS along with the fact I put him on dialysis, they were unable to use his organs. This really upset me because he wanted to help save someone else’s life and now he’d never be able to do that.

In order to get Anthony’s medical records released to me we had to go back to the hospital that morning and sign some more papers. I wanted a copy of his medical records so I could better understand what was going on.  One nurse would tell me something and another would tell me something different and I just wanted to know the truth.

Our next trip was to go to Jason’s house to get Anthony’s cookbook and any other belongings he may have had there, just in case it got ugly we had the police escort us. One of the officers was the original officer that showed up at the hospital when I called the police about the boy and girl in front of the hospital.  Before the police went to the door I explained to them these kids were to think Anthony was still alive so if they asked me how he was doing I’d have to lie and say he was still the same. I also told them this was Anthony’s drug dealer’s house hoping they’d make a drug bust in the near future.

When the police knocked on the door, Carla answered it.  The police entered first and then they let mother and me in. Carla handed me his cookbook, his annual from Camp Shelby and something else but I don’t remember what it was.  While we were standing there her puppy came running out, it was a pit bull. She told us it was the same age as Anthony’s puppy.  She asked me how he was doing and I told her there were no changes.

Once we had Carla’s attention, one of the police officers started snooping around and asking her questions.  Carla said when we drove up she’d just started cleaning the blood off of the back porch where Anthony died and asked me if I wanted to go back there, I told her, “No.”  If I would’ve been smart I would’ve said, “Yes” because then I would’ve realized he did throw up while there. Another thing that is confusing is no one ever mentioned blood to me.  Why would Anthony have been bleeding, it must have come from his mouth because there were no cuts on his body that were fresh other than the cut from Susan early that morning and it wouldn’t have still been bleeding at that time.

Next mother and I hit up several pawn shops in the area to see if we could find Anthony’s watch and bracelet Susan kept but we had no luck. 

After leaving the pawn shops we went to the police station to tell them Anthony had passed away so they could go ahead and arrest Rodney and start the murder investigation but no one was there. 

While we were there Toyyua (Eddie’s sister) called to check on me and I told her how Anthony died in my arms and about the trickle of blood that came out of his nose. I was sharing that moment with her because she shared how her and her mother (Bettye) had bathed Betty’s mother and sang to her when she passed away a couple of months before that. When I got off the phone mother scolded me, she told me those moments were private and no one was to know how he spent his last few days on this earth.  I just shook my head and didn’t say anything, no matter what I did I couldn’t do anything right.

We spent Saturday and Sunday night at mother’s friend’s house, the people that took us out to eat Mexican food.

Sunday night mother and I had to get ready for the six hour ride to Mississippi. I was dreading it so bad because I knew we were going to get into another fight which would make for a very long ride.  Finally I said, “Mother I am really dreading the ride to Mississippi with you” and she asked, “Why?”  I said, “Because I know we are going to fight all the way there and it is going to be a very long ride.”  She said, “I promise you we will not fight on the way there” and we didn’t.  It was a very pleasant drive actually and we both needed that very much.

That night Eddie and the boys made is safely to Bettye’s house. Thank goodness they didn’t get snowed in.