CHAPTER 24

 

A couple of hours had gone by and Clarye was becoming rather concerned about Gavin and EJ’s whereabouts. Kenya lived only about ten miles away and so Clarye had expected Gavin and EJ to be home quite some time ago. She tried reaching Gavin on his car phone but there was no answer. She put the message “call home” in his pager, but still she did not receive a call. Clarye also knew that Gloria was going to be obviously upset that Gavin was confronting her about using their daughter to get money for drugs and so that had Clarye concerned more so than usual.

“Everything’s fine,” Clarye tried convincing herself. “Maybe Gavin and EJ stopped over to his friend Kurt’s house.

“After all,” she smiled, “Gavin is always telling me that I’m a chronic worrier, his sexy, old worry wart.” Nonetheless, she began to pray for their safe return, while she tried convincing herself there was nothing unusual about having a desire to pray for their safety.

Clarye was sitting on the edge of the bed watching one of her favorite TV shows. Because of her writing and now her new life, she barely had time to watch TV; so whenever she did, she wanted to make sure it was something that she really enjoyed. She heard a shuffling sound coming down the hall. When she looked up, a smile at seeing Gavin was beginning to etch across her face. That smile immediately turned into fear when she saw her beloved husband standing before her with vast amounts of his blood pouring out all over his one time starched, white shirt. Clarye’s heart was racing, pounding wildly with fear.

Her mind was in a fog. Somewhere in her mind, she heard Gavin screaming out, “Look how they beat me. Why did they do me this way? I didn’t do anything. Why did they do me this way?” he cried out.

She could clearly see a gaping wound in the back of his head, a hole that appeared to be as large as her fist. She was terrified at this sight of her husband. Eric appeared, it seems out of nowhere, as they tried to make sense out of the scene that was playing before their very eyes. Gavin was hysterical. Clarye tried to take hold of him, to calm him down so she could stop the bleeding and see how badly he was wounded.

Like a mad man, a man she never knew, Gavin jerked away from her embrace in a fit of rage. Her mind could not react fast enough with the emotions that were going on inside of her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t reason.

What was happening? Was this a mad nightmare of some kind?”

“Oh, Lord,”she hollered. She felt a billowing scream escape from her throat as Gavin ran out of the house with Eric trailing quickly behind him. Clarye stumbled, trying to lift her unbraced leg on to the floor of the blood stained carpet. She raced as fast as she could behind them. In spite of his serious injury, Gavin jumped back in the car with Eric barely making it in time, scurrying to climb in beside him.

EJ was hysterical, crying and praying to God and his mother, Sandy. “Please, God, don’t let anything happen to my daddy. Don’t let anything happen to my granddaddy. Please, Momma up in heaven. Please, God,” he cried and cried.

Clarye frantically prayed herself, knowing that Gavin was in trouble and seriously wounded. What could she do? She could not think. She could not function. Her mind was in a fit of confusion, fear, hurt, and anger. She was consumed with a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Clarye prayed fervently, pleading with God for Gavin’s protection. Would Eric be able to calm him down and bring him home so they could get him to a hospital? Everything within her was in a blur. All she could see was the blood. Blood that seemed to have an endless flow had poured from the wound on Gavin’s neck and head.

Clarye called Vita and told her what had occurred. Vita rushed over immediately. The two of them set out to find Gavin and Eric. They called from Vita’s car to Gavin’s car. There was no answer. They went to Gavin’s mother’s house, driving down each side street they could possibly think of on the way. They didn’t see them anywhere. When they made it to Gavin’s mother’s house, they spotted Gavin’s car.

“Clarye,” Rolonda screamed. “We were able to get the keys from Gavin. But then he just took off running.” Lawrence, Rolonda’s husband, had a brother who was a lieutenant on the Memphis police force. She called him to get his help. He went out searching for Gavin too. Eric was left behind at Gavin’s mother’s house. Rolonda said, between sobs, that she would take Eric back to the house.

In the meantime, Jean had left to search for her son herself while Clarye and Vita set out once again to look for him. Clarye felt a sense of nothingness and numbness beginning to overpower her spirit.

Pain had returned to her life with a fiery madness. It appeared with a camaraderie of its soldiers.

Vita drove at a snail’s pace, carefully, so that they would not miss spotting Gavin. The unusual sight of deserted streets one after another gave an embedded eeriness around Clarye. Vita had been driving what seemed like forever to Clarye, who was still hysterical, when she looked to the right of her and saw a tall, lean, familiar figure running. It was Gavin. She screamed out.

“Vita. Pull over. Clarye ordered. Vita swerved to the curb. They saw Gavin running hard and fast, bleeding profusely. Vita jumped hastily out of her old, burgundy Cadillac. In Clarye’s haste to reach her husband, she forgot all about her crutches. Her only thought and concern was to reach her beloved Gavin and get him to a hospital.

She hobbled over to him, pleading. “Gavin, sweetheart, please get in the car,” she screamed out to him. ‘We need to get you some help. Everything is going to be fine. You’ll see. Come on sweetheart.” But Gavin was in a mad frenzied rage. He rushed passed Clarye as if she were invisible, quickly heading for the acres of abysmal groves of trees surrounding an undeveloped lot. Gavin simply vanished from their sight as he went deeper into the mass acres and acres of forest. Clarye and Vita began calling out to him, not knowing if he was able to hear their cries of panic. They waited and waited but there was no sign of him.

“Clarye,” Vita said in tears herself, “I’m going to take you home. Me and Eric will come back out to search for him, plus the police are out here looking too, Clarye.”

Clarye could not give her a reply. Her strength, her faith, everything was being drained with each second Gavin was not with her. When Vita pulled up into the winding drive of their home, Clarye slowly climbed from the car, hobbling down the concrete path leading to their front door. Eric rushed to the door to greet them, hoping to see Gavin standing next to his mother. When he did not see him, he rushed frantically past Clarye, racing to his car to go back out and search for him, leaving Vita to go out by herself.

Eric was determined to find Gavin; to find the man who had become his father. As he had been in Clarye’s past, Eric was again her strong tower, her rock of Gibraltar. She saw the look of hurt and fear stretched across his handsome, manly, young face and a rush of love for her eldest son swooped in and surrounded her. She went back inside and telephoned Jeremy at the hospital and told him to get home quickly, briefly filling him in on the nights horrifying events. She then telephoned Kurt, pleading with him to come quickly, telling him in her state of panic that Gavin was in trouble and seriously injured.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Clarye,” Kurt tried to reassure her. “I’ll find him. He’s going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right.

How many times had Clarye heard, everything is going to be all right? Everything was not all right. Her husband was out there somewhere injured, hurting, bleeding, and maybe even dying. Everything was not all right.”

Jean was still out there somewhere driving along the dark streets, frantically in search for her only son. But Gavin was nowhere to be found. He just vanished into nowhere. Suddenly Eric rushed in the front door and hurriedly gathered one of his shirts. Clarye begged him to tell her what was going on. In his haste to get back out of the door, he mumbled almost incoherently that he had spotted Gavin.

“Momma, I have to get a shirt for Gavin. I spotted him and he’s bleeding badly, Eric said hurriedly. I’ve got to get back to him. I can barely keep up with him. Momma, he’s in a rage and he’s hurt bad,” Eric said running past his mother, hurrying to get back to the man he now considered to be his father. Eric said he was trying to stop Gavin but unbeknownst to them, Gavin was being driven by a rage that was greater than the love any of them had for him. Rage that was greater than the love he had for even Clarye.

Clarye decided to go and search for her husband herself. She raced out to her truck. Minutes after she began her search, she spotted him a few blocks from the house and called out to him. At the same time, she saw Jean parked on the other side of the street. Gavin looked up with a glare of nothingness in his eyes and ran over to Clarye. He was ranting and raving, screaming and pleading, “Clarye, give me the keys to the car.”

She pleaded with him to get in the car and he did. Her shaking, trembling fingers reached to turn the ignition and Gavin reached out holding her back.

He kept asking Clarye, or himself, or the Lord, “Why, why?” He pleaded with her like a child pleading for a new toy, to take him to his daughter’s house.

Clarye cried out with such hurt when she saw the seriousness of his wounds, “Gavin, please don’t you see that this whole thing is from Satan, sweetheart? Honey, we just got married; you just got your new store. Please, honey, don’t do this. Remember you said you would never leave me? Gavin, Gavin, please we have to get you to a hospital,” Clarye cried and screamed trying to reach out to him. At that time she didn’t realize it, but her beloved Gavin was gone, in another world, on another plane.

“Why, why? I didn’t do anything. He answered her incoherently. Why would she set me up like this?” he continued to cry out.

Clarye tried with all that was within her, with all the love she had for this faithful, beautiful man to calm him down. She tried by reminding him of how much the two of them loved each other, how much they had to look forward to, and how much she needed him.

His reply was a cold, chilling response that hit Clarye with a magnitude of force. His eyes appeared to look past her into her soul, but they were not the eyes of her dear beloved, Gavin. They were eyes that appeared lost, searching, wandering eyes that could not understand the grave injustice, eyes that showed hurt, as he said, “If you love me you’ll take me back.”

“No, Gavin,” Clarye weakly protested. Her voice was filled with defeat. “I have to get you to the hospital. I have to call the police,” she said.

Clarye was determined to put the car in gear and drive off with Gavin to get help. Suddenly, as if reading her mind, he jumped angrily out of the car and back into the street ranting and raving that no one loved him.

Jean was still parked across the street hoping and praying that her daughter in law would be able to get through to her precious son. When she saw him jump from the truck she cried out to him as only a mother can, pleading with him to get inside her car.

“Gavin,” she said, consumed by her fear but equally as consumed by her love, “Please, honey, just get in the car and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” Jean had no intentions of granting Gavin’s request to take him back to the scene. She was frantically searching for any words she could in order to get him in her car and to a hospital.

Maybe Clarye and Jean both knew somehow that time was quickly running out. That hope of saving Gavin from death’s waiting door was being swiftly stolen. Satan definitely appeared to be holding the winning hand.

When Gavin bolted from Clarye’s truck, Pain was ever present beside her, mocking her, laughing at her. She felt the something within telling her that life would never be the same again. She drove away quietly and slowly, heading the few blocks back home and a feeling of total aloneness and emptiness began to rush in and consume her soul.

Eric rushed past his mom just as soon as she entered into the doorway, and she told him what had just transpired. He had to make one last effort to see if he could find Gavin and Jean. Clarye saw the frightened stare of EJ when she entered the house but she could not mouth any words of comfort to him when he asked her where his granddaddy was. Instead, she went slowly, her limp of tiredness going almost unnoticed, and dropped heavily to her knees and began to pray. She cried out to God to save Gavin, and to protect him.

She pleaded with him by quoting scriptures of protection one after another: “Before you call on Me, I will hear you and while you are yet speaking I will answer; though a thousand shall fall at Gavin’s right side and ten thousand at his feet, no harm shall come near him for I will satisfy him with long life; ask and it shall be given unto you; you have not because you ask not; whatever you ask in my name I will do it, no weapon formed against Gavin shall prosper.”

Clarye didn’t know how long she stayed down on her knees crying out to God. All she knew was that the same scriptures and prayers she knew so well stopped flowing. She was overtaken by something else, someone else. She struggled against the words that forced themselves to part her lips. She somehow knew it was no longer her that was praying, but her Spirit, her very soul had taken over and spoke the words to God that she knew she did not have the strength to pray. She tried with all of her might to hold back what was trying to escape from her lips but the words poured ever forcefully from her and her Inner Spirit began talking to God. “Lord,” she began. We don’t always want to ask for your will to be done because we don’t like your will sometimes but Lord I’m asking that Your will be done Lord Your will be done,” she struggled against what was coming out of her mouth. Suddenly she found that she could not utter another word. A soothing, quiet sense of peace that Clarye did not understand filled her soul.

Sometime during her prayers, Eric arrived back home.

“Momma,” he said pitifully. “He’s gone. Gavin jumped out of Jean’s car and simply vanished, without a trace.”

Without uttering so much as a groan, Clarye reached over to the phone and called Jean’s house. “Hello,“ she said weakly.

She heard Rolonda screaming. “Gavin is dead. Clarye, Gavin is dead.”

As if in slow motion, Clarye hung up the phone and told Eric with a scary calmness,

“Eric, Gavin is dead.” Eric hastily grabbed EJ and the three of them headed for Kenya and her mother’s apartment. Eric sped madly, angrily down the street. As he approached the apartments, they saw what appeared to be in Clarye’s mind the bluest of blue lights. They were the flashing and flickering lights of the police cars. Numbness, emptiness, defeat and brokenness enveloped her completely. If her trusty companion, Pain was present; Clarye could not feel even it. She slowly stepped out of the car at the same time Eric ran and leaped up the steps leading to the apartment, hoping to find out that Rolonda had been mistaken. But Clarye somehow knew that Rolonda was not mistaken. Her beloved Gavin was gone. Eric raced to her side. Clarye was trying desperately to reach Gavin and rescue him from all this evil.

She barely heard Eric tell her, “Momma you don’t need to see Gavin like this.” But she would not listen, could not listen.

“Ma’am”, the policeman politely said, “Is that your husband?”

Clarye mumbled, “Yes.” The officer reached out to help her lame, lifeless body up the steps. She slowly and carefully walked over and looked down at Gavin’s body that was now covered by a white sheet. She did not ask them to remove the covers. She did not say anything. Gavin was gone. Clarye turned and began to walk off.

“Was he your people?” Someone in the huge crowd asked Clarye.

Without looking up, she quietly said, “Yes.” Little did anyone know, but Clarye had died her own death as well. No tears came forth, there was only nothingness. She vaguely remembered seeing Kurt, who had made it to the scene only to be too late. She saw Kenya and her mother, faces void of emotion. The two of them were sitting in the police vehicle. Clarye could hear in the shadows of her numb mind, Eric lashing out and swearing at Kenya. His pain was mounting as he screamed out to Kenya and her mother.

“Why, Why? How could you do this terrible thing?” He cried. “How could you destroy Gavin? How could you destroy my mom like this? How could you destroy us?” They said nothing.

The police later informed them that the vicious men who had beaten Gavin apparently saw him running back toward the scene. They shot Gavin twice in the chest as he approached them. Kenya and her mother were in the midst of the whole ordeal. They had actually allowed her precious Gavin to be beaten and shot by these evil minded, lowlife hoodlums, and all for the sake of getting more drug money.

Jeremy had come home, but he had returned to work after finding everyone gone, thinking that the situation wasn’t serious and everything was okay. After returning to work, he later took a break and called to check on everyone expecting everything to be just fine. Clarye picked up the phone and heard Jeremy’s voice on the other end.

“Gavin is dead,” she told Jeremy and gently placed the receiver back on its base. A flurry of people came and went during the night. Who they were, what they said, Clarye could not say because she could not remember.

Sleep finally came sometime during the night for Clarye. When she awoke the next morning, she refused to believe that any of what had happened was real. It had to have been a nightmare because she could still smell the scent of her husband. But when she turned over to snuggle up against him, his side of the bed was empty and cold. Quickly cruel, heartless reality set in once more. She started to receive phone calls and visits from more of their family and friends. Her sisters, her mother, Ada, Eric and Jeremy were all with her.

The days that lay ahead just came and went. Clarye was consumed by emptiness and void of feeling anything. When the house became silent and empty of people coming and going, she would lay down on the bed she and Gavin once shared. She could hear her groans as they burst out pouring out over her like a giant tidal wave. Sobs turned quickly into screams of pain. Loss reached deep into the confines of her soul. Loud, uncontrollable, gut wrenching, painstaking sobs flowed endlessly.

Jeremy came into her room and fell to his knees besides her. Tearfully and painfully he listened, listened to the pains of death’s aftermath flowing from her; listened to the pain that he knew she would never cease to forget.

“Shorty, don’t you know I’ll never leave you, girl. We’ll always be together.” The words rang out through Clarye’s mind over and over again. Words that cut her in two every time she would hear Gavin say them, now she was living the, til’ death do us part, and it was killing her as well.

“How could this have happened? Why, Lord?” Again, she heard the Lord say nothing.

Two days after Gavin’s brutal murder, she went to see Jean so they could make the funeral arrangements. She stopped at the bank to begin the process of taking care of some of the financial matters that she knew would have to be dealt with. That’s where she saw her, Kenya—who appeared void of any signs of emotion of what had transpired, void of the major part she played in her father’s death.

“Hello, Clarye,” Kenya said in an almost cheerful like voice that disturbed Clarye terribly.

All Clarye could do was look...stare...in total disbelief and ask herself, “How could she?” She was in an utter state of confusion. She knew that the police had arrested Kenya and her mother at the scene of Gavin’s brutal and senseless murder. The police confirmed their earlier statement; that the men who had beaten Gavin had apparently seen him running back toward the apartment complex and senselessly shot him. They said he died within minutes of the shooting. They also said that one of the young men was believed to be Kenya’s boyfriend and was also part of the group of drug dealers that stole Gavin’s life. This same boyfriend was also thought to be one of Kenya’s mother’s drug suppliers.

“God, maybe If I had known somehow,” Clarye thought. “Maybe things could have been different. I could have shown my love for Gavin even more. Oh, Lord; If only I felt something that might have warned me of what was about to hit us head on. Oh, what a vicious trick Pain has played,” she bitterly cried out.