TAJ
Everything I carried over from Lee’s was enough to fit into a small suitcase. She had locked me out of the bedroom, which was a first. “I know you don’t want to talk or see me right now, Lee, but I’m not giving up on you; I’m not going to give up on us. I know there’s nothing I can say to make this better, but I’m damn sure going to try. I’m going to talk to Jimi and tell him that I quit, that I can’t do it anymore. I don’t give a damn if I wind up working at Burger King. At least I will have you. If you need to reach me, you know where to find me. I will understand if you don’t want anything to do with me again, but know that I love you and I will always care about you.” In a perfect world, I wanted her to fling the door open, throw herself into my arms and confess her undying love to me, but I knew with how she had gone off on me, the chance of that happening was zero. I threw my suitcase filled with whatever I had brought over, and set it on the floor in the backseat of my car. I took the script that Jimi had given me, that had literally fucked up what I had with Lee, and flung it out of the window. It was time that I leave that world. I was getting sick of the drug use, the late-night hours, and it was past time for me to clean my life up, go back to school, finish my degree.
I honestly didn’t feel like going back to my place. Sitting at home and feeling sorry for myself, would have only made things worse. I called up my boy, Deandre to see what was up, but his phone kept ringing until it clicked over to voicemail. “This is Dre, you know what to do.” I hate that voicemail shit, so I didn’t bother to leave a message, but instead decided to drive over to his apartment. Dre would always give me good advice, especially when it came down to women. Yeah, he could do some fucked-up shit sometimes, but he was my boy, and really was the only brother I trusted. I was relieved to see that he was home after seeing his silver Charger parked in the lot of his apartment complex. I rushed up to the second floor and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. When I knocked again, the door eased open. Deandre was lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
I rushed over to him thinking that maybe he was still alive, but I could tell by the deep slash across his throat and death in his eyes, that Dre was dead. There was glass everywhere; the place looked like it had been ransacked. My hand was shaking when I took out my phone to dial 9-1-1. The stench of blood was enough to make me dry-heave, so I ran outside where I threw up outside of Dre’s apartment. It didn’t take the cops long to get to his place when I told them that somebody was dead. They take their sweet-ass time if it’s anything short of someone being murdered. Two cop cars arrived at the complex with blaring sirens that lit up the lot. Before long, the place was teeming with po-po, paramedics and firemen. This bald cop in plain-dress clothes, Italian-looking, who looked like he was made for breaking balls, arrived on the scene.
“Can ya’ll cover him up, damn.” The cop glanced over at me when one of the uniform pigs pointed me out to him. I’ve watched enough episodes of The First 48 to know that he was one of those homicide detectives.
“Hi, I’m Detective Stambler.” He fished a small memo pad out of one of the breast pockets of his shirt. “What’s your name, son?”
“Taj Bowman.”
Cops and coroners filled Deandre’s apartment, stomping thoughtlessly all over the place, touching shit with their latex gloves, treating it like it was some kind of damn biohazard.
“How do you know the deceased?”
“His name is Deandre Hartman. He was a friend of mine.”
“What time did you arrive on the scene?”
“I don’t know. Around one-thirty, two o’clock.”
“So what did you see when you arrived on the scene?”
“I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. When I pushed the door open, that’s when I saw Deandre lying dead on the floor.”
“Do you know anyone who would want to hurt Mr. Hartman?”
“No, no one I can think of.”
“Are you sure?”
“I told you, no, there’s nobody. Man, do all these cops have to be in there like that, walking all around his body and shit. They need to have some fucking respect.”
The cop directed one of the coroners to put a sheet over him.
He waved at one of the uniform cops and told him to cover Deandre up.
“Well, Mr. Bowman, I don’t think we have any more questions for you. You’re free to go, but stick around. We may need to ask you some more questions.”
“What? That’s it?”
“If we have more questions, we will give you a call.”
“So, I’m supposed to what, sit around with my thumbs up my ass to find out what happened to my friend?”
“Mr. Bowman, there’s nothing you can do here.”
“It’s obvious someone killed him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Well, he didn’t slash his own damn throat.”
“Marc, we found something,” one of the CSIs yelled. He pulled a camera off the entertainment center.
“Mr. Bowman, you need to leave. We will call you if we have any more questions or details of the case.”
“Whoever killed Deandre is on that camera.”
“Officer Whalen, could you please escort Mr. Bowman off the premises?”
I took one last look at Deandre’s body knowing that the next time I would see him again would be at his funeral.
“Fuck off, I’m leaving,” I said as I tugged my arm away out of that pig’s grip when he attempted to take me by the arm and escort me out of Dre’s apartment. My life was unraveling at the seams. I had lost my girlfriend and my best friend all in the same day. What the fuck was going on?