12

Once again, Wacka came to Tarsha’s door in bad shape. With his left hand poorly bandaged and his face severely cut and bruised, he collapsed in the front room.

“What the fuck happened to you now?” she asked him.

“I need you,” he cried out.

Wacka was in severe pain, but he was a tough son-of-a-bitch. The stolen car he used to get from New York to Maryland was left parked outside her home. Wacka had carjacked some fool with his severe injuries and made it back to Maryland, blowing through the tolls with the stolen E-ZPass. How did he make the long drive in his condition? It would always be a mystery to Tarsha. But he trusted her. He had no one else but her and their son.

It was the middle of the night, and, luckily, their son was sleeping, and so were her neighbors. Wacka cringed from the pain in his hands. From where Tarsha stood, it looked bad. She closed and locked her front door and went to tend to his injury. She undid the bandage around his left hand and saw the unthinkable.

“Ohmygod!” she uttered in shock.

Wacka was missing three fingers. He’d lost his thumb, trigger finger on his dominant left hand, and separated the pinky finger on his right hand from the horrific car accident that Maxine caused. With his adrenaline on high, he had found and picked up his fingers and run off. It took sheer willpower to carjack someone in his condition and drive the hours to Maryland.

“Wacka, what the fuck am I supposed to do wit’ this?” Tarsha hollered.

“I need help, baby. I’m fucked up,” he moaned.

“You need to go to the hospital. That’s what you need.”

Wacka looked reluctant. Not that long ago he had been in the hospital from his gunshot wounds. He had gone through days and days of therapeutic healing. But he didn’t have a choice. He was in pain. His body felt mangled inside. Maxine did a number on him when she flipped the car. But he refused to die. The sheer hatred he felt for her and the West family kept his heart pumping with life.

“Fuck the hospital,” he exclaimed.

“Wacka, don’t be stupid! What can I do for you? Nothing! I’m no doctor.”

He huffed in pain and agony. He was getting blood all over her floor. His body felt cold. The light in his eyes refused to fade out. He scowled and he cursed. Maxine had gotten the best of him again, and the thought of her still living gave him strength to stay alive.

Tarsha, however, was becoming tired of taking care of Wacka. He only came running her way when he was jammed up or tired of running through random pussy and wanted to bed her down. She was tired of trying to put him back together like he was Humpty Dumpty. He was broke, and her bills needed to be paid. She had a son to look after, but once again, he needed her attention too.

Wacka wasn’t his old self; something had changed in him. Before it was about that money, and Tarsha received some of that money to help with their son. Although he was a monster on the streets, he still was taking care of his son.

Even though she didn’t say it to his face, she strongly felt that his days as a career criminal were over. That meant they would most likely stay broke. She would need to get a real job, because public assistance wasn’t enough to pay the bills.

She couldn’t let him die. She couldn’t let him suffer anymore. He was in pain and his hands were mangled. The hospital was their only choice. What she would tell them this time? What excuse could she give the doctors to keep the local police from investigating them?

“I’m takin’ you to the hospital. You don’t have a choice. You’re not dying on my living room floor,” she said as she hurried around her home collecting things and got ready to call her friend to come and watch their son.

Wacka propped himself against the wall, nursing his mangled hands and frowning heavily. Three fingers gone, and he was losing too much blood. His skin looked ashen.

Tarsha did her best to comfort him, but she carried a stink attitude. She was not happy about it. Wacka wasn’t stupid. He knew what her attitude and disrespectful treatment were from. There he was again, bleeding and fucked up, but this time it was from a car accident instead of multiple gunshot wounds.

A half-hour later, Tarsha was helping Wacka into the emergency room. Unfortunately the doctors could do nothing for his fingers. They explained to him they should have been on ice, and they couldn’t reattach them. His days of carrying a pistol were over, and guns were the foundation of Wacka’s criminal operation. He was a handicap—a fuckin’ cripple—to Tarsha. If he couldn’t rob, steal, or kill—then what was he good for?