Chapter 23
After leaving Regina’s house, Niko made his way toward Antwan’s. He felt vindicated by the fact that Regina’s cousin had helped him exact revenge on the girl he had started to care about deeply.
Brandy had come over to Regina’s house while she was recovering from her injuries. While Regina was the good girl who was on her way to college, Brandy was just the opposite. A violent girl by all accounts, Brandy was quick-tempered and always down to set someone up to be robbed. After seeing what had happened to her cousin, she caught Niko as he was leaving and told him that if he wanted to get even with Ricky, she was more than willing to help him. Niko then scouted around and found out where Ricky liked to hang out. He took to the streets the following day and even greased a few palms to get a lead on his adversary. He got lucky when a dude who’d gotten into it with Ricky heard about his search and hit him off with the information.
Niko knew he was late to Antwan’s party, but this was something he had to do. He wasn’t going to go at first, but Regina told him that she was okay with him going. Brandy was there with her, so she wasn’t worried about anything. Reluctantly, Niko agreed. Since he had to pass his house to get to Antwan’s, he decided to go home and take a quick shower. He didn’t want to go to his friend’s party smelling like he’d just played a full-court game of basketball.
As he walked up on his porch, he heard loud arguing coming from his living room. Niko walked in the house just in time to see James backhand his mother to the floor.
“Hey, muthafucka!” Niko rushed James and threw a wild right hand at him. James ducked and picked Niko off the ground. James then slammed Niko to the floor, causing him to hit his head on the hardwood floor. A knot quickly formed on the back of Niko’s head. Niko was slightly dazed as James wrapped his hands around his throat. Doris tried to intervene, which resulted in her being hit again. Niko took advantage of James briefly taking his attention off of him by rolling James over and getting on top of him. Niko then peppered James with lefts and rights. No matter how bad Doris treated Niko, she was still his mother. Once again Doris jumped in, grabbing her son around the neck and pulling on him with all her might.
“Niko, let him go!” she screamed.
With one mighty tug, Doris yanked her son off of James. Both of them fell backward onto the floor. James jumped to his feet. But instead of trying to get to Niko, James made a beeline for the couch. Niko knew right away that he was going for the gun that his mother kept between the cushions. As quick as lightning, Niko got to his feet and tackled James just as he got the gun out of the cushions.
The two of them struggled with the gun until they both tripped and fell on the floor. For the third time, Doris got involved in the melee.
“Stop it, please, stop it!” she yelled as she ran over and tried to snatch the gun from both of them.
With all three of them on the floor trying to gain control of the weapon, it went off twice. An ear-splitting scream could be heard all the way to the corner.
* * *
After hearing gunshots followed by a scream, Antwan and Temp took off running around the side of the house. Both of them had their pistols in their hands. Cynthia, Veronica, and Tangie were right behind them. Bo and Crystal brought up the rear. When they got halfway to the front, their hearts sank. Lying on the ground bleeding was their friend and fellow Young Lionz, Chris.
“Chris! Chris!” Temp yelled in shock.
Antwan ran to the front of the house just in time to see a black Nissan Sentra peel off down the street. Antwan fired off a couple of rounds but didn’t come close to hitting the car. When he ran back to the side of the house, Temp had his cell phone in his hand. Tears were in his eyes as he dialed 911.
“Who the fuck did this shit to you, man?” Temp asked.
“I don’t know, man,” Chris answered.
“Did you see who it was?” Temp asked Antwan.
“Nah, man, I didn’t recognize the car.”
Veronica and Tangie were bawling their eyes out. Tears had also crept into the corners of Antwan’s eyes. Crystal had her head buried in Bo’s shoulder as he stood there shaking his head. Minutes later, the ambulance pulled up to the curb. Without a second to waste, the EMT workers jumped out of the truck, grabbed a gurney, and rushed over to attend to Chris. Immediately, they began checking his wounds.
“Okay, we need to stop this bleeding and fast,” one of them said. The other one nodded his head in agreement as he dabbed at Chris’s wounds with towels.
“Oh, shit, man. I can’t feel my legs, man,” Chris said. They carefully loaded him onto the gurney. “Man, somebody call my mom,” Chris said weakly. The blood loss was beginning to make him lose consciousness.
“What’s yo’ house number, man?” Antwan asked, taking out his phone to dial.
When they transported Chris to the hospital, Temp rode in the ambulance. He refused to leave his friend’s side. Antwan and Bo followed them in their cars. On the way there, Veronica called Bishop to tell him what had happened, but she got frustrated when he didn’t answer.
* * *
Vivian sat in the hospital with her head hanging to the ground. For the first time in her life, she was seriously starting to lose her faith. She just couldn’t understand how the Lord could play such a cruel joke on her. It had to be a joke. Or maybe she was dreaming. That’s what she kept telling herself over and over again. She wanted to believe that. But every time she lifted her head up and saw Chris’s friends sitting in the same room as her with tears running down their faces, she knew that she was wide awake. This wasn’t a dream. Her son was lying on a table, fighting for his life.
Vivian was starting to wonder if she should just buy a cot and bring it into the hospital along with a blanket and a pillow. She had spent so much time there that she thought they were going to start making her pay rent. After realizing that her situation was not a dream, she let her head fall back down and hang to the floor. Tears fell from her eyes in waves and hit the marble with sickening silence. Vivian’s hands were shaking as she got up and walked outside. Her tears continued to flow freely as she thought about doing something she hadn’t done in the last ten years. Vivian then walked back into the hospital and headed toward the coffee machine. She stood there for quite a while before turning around and walking away from it, deciding that the last thing she needed was caffeine.
When she got back into the waiting room, the doctor was making his way through the doors. He slowly made his way over to Vivian. Chris’s friends quickly walked over to see what was going on. Bo and Crystal had already left, Bo telling Antwan that he had some business to take care of. The doctor rubbed his long, angular face. He opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind. Seeing the look in Vivian’s eyes caused him to hesitate. It pained him to have to tell her the news about her son.
“Hello, Ms. Morrow. My name is Dr. Richards. The bullet that struck your son nicked his spine and lodged into his back. As of right now, he’s paralyzed, but it may not be a permanent situation.”
“Oh, my God!” Vivian cried out. Tangie put her arm around her and held her tight. Vivian had no idea who these people were comforting her. She didn’t know any of Chris’s friends except Niko. But one thing she was quickly finding out was that they cared very deeply about her son.
“Is he awake?” Temp asked.
“No. I’m sorry to tell you he’s slipped into a coma.”
Vivian collapsed. Temp turned around and stormed out of the hospital. He was walking so fast he almost knocked down a woman who was coming through the door.
“Damn, excuse you,” the woman said, snaking her neck. Temp stopped in his tracks. Slowly he turned around and shot daggers at her. He was just about to say something foul to her when Antwan, who was following him, grabbed him by the arm and ushered him outside.
“Come on, man. Let it go,” he said, throwing his arm around Temp.
As the doctor continued to talk to Vivian, Veronica tried to call Bishop again. “He has to be back at Antwan’s by now,” she mumbled. Just as she was getting ready to dial, her phone went powerless. Veronica wanted to scream. She couldn’t believe that at a time like this, her cell phone was out of power. It wouldn’t be until later that she’d find out about the text message Bishop had sent her.
* * *
Temp and Antwan stood in the waiting room, digesting the bad news. Had it not been for the fact that there were at least four other people there, both of them surely would have broken into tears. Seeing their comrade lying on the ground bleeding like that tore them apart. Temp quietly eased over to Antwan and placed his hand on his shoulder.
“Yo, man, you sure you didn’t recognize the whip them shots came from?” Temp whispered to Antwan.
“Nah, man. I ain’t never seen that ride before.”
“Well, I know one muthafuckin’ thing. Whoevea did this shit gon’ pay!”
“You muthafuckin’ right!” Antwan agreed.
“Wait a minute,” Temp said all of a sudden. “Where the fuck is Bishop? I know he done got back to your house by now.”
Temp took out his cell phone and dialed Bishop’s number. He got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach when he didn’t get an answer.
“Man, that nigga ain’t answering. We need to go back to your house and see if something done happened.”
Before leaving, Antwan gave Vivian his number and told her to call him if there was any change. Antwan then gathered the rest of his crew and told them that it was time to leave. Before they left, they all gave Vivian a hug. Each of them struggled to hold back tears as they headed for the door.
* * *
Doris sat down in the waiting room and shook her head. The turn of events that happened less than an hour ago had shaken her to the core. For the longest time, she had ignored James’s adulterous behavior. Even though they were not legally married, Doris had put up with enough from him to call him her own. She was loyal to him. She loved him unconditionally and would do anything to protect him. She had never strayed on him, and foolishly trusted him when he told her that she was the only woman for him.
She had her suspicions but gave him the benefit of the doubt when it came to infidelity. She wanted to believe everything he said. She worshipped him. And he thanked her by giving her the monster. That’s why they were having such a heated argument when Niko walked through the door. James had accused her of sleeping around. But Doris was 100 percent certain that she couldn’t have concocted the deadly disease from anyone but him. Now part of her wished that whoever attacked him in her hallway had killed him. And when she told him so, he slapped her to the floor. The look in his eyes when he did it scared her.
That’s when Niko came in and quite possibly saved her life. Only minutes after Niko was shot, James ran out of the house to avoid being questioned by the police. Now here she was sitting in the chilly hospital waiting room to see if her son was going to live. Doris felt so alone sitting there. Doris looked across from her and saw a woman sitting there with a Bible in her hand. The Bible was open, but the woman didn’t appear to be reading it. Every few seconds, a tear would fall from the woman’s face and stain the holy paper.
Doris more than felt her pain. She didn’t know what the woman’s plight was, but she could tell that it was something gut-wrenching to have that kind of effect on her. Doris then got up and went to the bathroom. When she came back, she took a seat right next to Vivian. After exchanging hellos, the two women started talking about their respective issues.
“You know, I’m really proud of Chris,” Vivian stated as tears ran down her face. “Even though I didn’t approve of what he was doing, I did appreciate that he was willing to do whatever he had to do to make sure his sister’s surgery was going to be paid for.”
Doris nodded her head as she looked at Vivian with sad eyes. She could almost feel Vivian’s pain leaking from her heart and seeping into her pores. Placing her hand on Vivian’s, she rubbed it gently. Vivian responded by placing her other hand on top of Doris’s.
“I’m so sorry about your loved one,” Doris said sympathetically. “Will he be okay?” Although Doris was dealing with her own crisis, she couldn’t help but be sympathetic to Vivian.
“I don’t know. I pray to God that he will be.” Vivian looked at Doris with sad eyes. She could tell that she also has something heavy on her heart. “Are you okay?” she asked Doris.
“Not really. My son is in there fighting for his life, and to be honest, I kind of blame myself.”
“Why?”
Doris opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Even though she felt she needed to talk to someone, she’d just met Vivian, so she didn’t feel comfortable sharing her story. Doris knew that her man was no good. She’d even thought about leaving him a time or two, and now she wished she had. But what really made her feel like shit was the way she’d treated her son. She treated him like he was a piece of shit, and now she may never be able to make it up to him.
Even though Chris and Niko were friends, the two women didn’t know each other from a can of paint. It wasn’t until they started talking that they realized both of them had children in the same hospital fighting for their lives.
* * *
When Antwan pulled up in front of his house, he and Temp jumped out of the car and eased around the side of the house. Both of them had their guns down by their sides. They didn’t know if whoever shot Chris was going to come back and sling slugs at the rest of them, but they weren’t taking any chances.
While Veronica and Tangie waited in the car, Antwan and Temp crept toward the backyard in murder mode. Antwan stopped Temp when he looked around the corner and saw someone at his back door.
“Freeze, muthafucka!” Antwan yelled as he jumped out and pointed his gun at the perpetrator.
“Don’t shoot, man!”
“Mike, what the hell you doin’ back here?”
Mike was a 13-year-old hothead who couldn’t stay out of trouble. Antwan would sometimes pay him the run to the store for him or Veronica. He had small, beady eyes and his hair was very nappy. “Man, this is the fourth time I been over here. I woulda called yo’ cell, but I forgot yo’ number.”
“What’s up, Mike?”
“Man, I was ridin’ my bike from Giant Eagle and saw some bullshit. Ya boy Bishop was being hemmed up by a plainclothes.”
“What?”
“Yeah, the bitch who got him was looking all smug and shit.”
Temp’s eyes got wide. He didn’t know for sure that it was the same woman detective who pulled him over, but he had a hunch it was. “Bitch? A bitch cop pulled me over a few days ago. What she look like?”
“To be honest, the bitch was fine as fuck. Long hair. Brown skinned.”
Temp reached into his pocket and took out a $20 bill. “Thanks, dawg,” he said, handing the money to Mike.
“One more thing, man,” Antwan said. “You know anybody ’round the hood who drives a black Nissan Sentra?”
Mike thought for a second and then snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that nigga named Truck drives one. I be seeing him cruisin’ around with his boy Dillon sometimes.”
“A’ight, thanks,” Temp said. The two of them headed back to Antwan’s car. “Yo, we need to find them niggas and let ’em hold something hot,” Temp said heatedly.
“I feel you, man. Them muthafuckas need to feel the pain.”
After ushering the women out of the car, they all went into the house. Once they got inside, Veronica called the police station to find out if Bishop had been charged yet. When she was told no, they realized all they could do was wait.
“Ay, we need to talk,” Temp said to Cynthia.
“Yeah, I guess we do,” she answered. Temp walked back outside, and Cynthia followed him. So much had happened that it had all of a sudden hit Temp that Cynthia was accusing him of being a father.
Temp and Cynthia had met over a year ago at a cabaret that Antwan had gotten Temp into. They weren’t in the place twenty minutes before Temp saw Cynthia and made up his mind that he just had to have her. That’s where Antwan had seen her before.
He didn’t get a clear look at her because she never came over to the table where he and Temp were sitting. Temp made it his business to go to her. One thing led to another, and the two of them ended up hooking up. They were together for about three months and had a tumultuous relationship. Temp discovered that he couldn’t control her like he could some of the other girls he’d been with. Toward the end of their relationship, Temp ended up getting Cynthia pregnant. In keeping with his MO, Temp agreed to pay for Cynthia’s abortion. Cynthia was all for it until she visited a friend of hers who had just had a baby.
Cynthia took one look at her friend’s child and decided that she couldn’t go through with it. Cynthia tried to get in touch with Temp to tell him that she’d changed her mind, but he wouldn’t take her calls. Cynthia’s mother told her that if Temp didn’t want to be a part of her child’s life, then she shouldn’t beg him to do so, so she stopped calling him. Temp, figuring that Cynthia had gotten the message because she’d stopped trying to call him, never even knew that Cynthia had had the baby until her statement earlier.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked with a smirk on her face.
“You know what the fuck I wanna talk about! Yo’ ass was supposed to have a fuckin’ abortion!”
“First of all, I don’t know who the hell you think you yellin’ at like that! I ain’t one of those thot bitches you probably used to fuckin’ around with, nigga!
“Yo, I ain’t tryin’ ta hear that bullshit! Since you ain’t get no abortion, I want my fuckin’ bread back!”
“Charge it to the game, nigga. And don’t worry about me coming after you for child support. Me and Brian don’t want a muthafuckin’ thing from you! We doin’ just fine, sperm donor.”
With those parting shots, Cynthia walked back into the house and left Temp standing there wondering about the son he never knew he had.