Jay and Grip went to a sports bar that Jay frequented that would serve him drinks when he was well passed his limits. They had only been at the bar for an hour before Jay was absolutely inebriated, so Grip loaded him in the car and painfully listen to the almost imcomprehensable rambling of a drunk until he finally found his house. He knocked on the door, not sure what to say to the woman who’d taken Robin’s place. He’d never met her and only knew what Jay had told him about her. He stood there with one of Jay’s arm’s thrown over his shoulder, while be basically held up the dead weight of his passed out cousin.
“Who is it?” came the sound of a very familiar voice on the other side of the door. Grip decided to remain quiet and when the door came flying open there she was.
“Widow,” Grip said when he saw Sasha standing on the other side of the door, “So this is where you’ve been hiding. Right in my own family, huh.” Grip made his way inside the house dragging Jay along with him. “Where’s the bedroom?” he asked. Sasha pointed to the end of the hall following closely behind as Grip carried Jay to the back room before grabbing her arm and closing the door on an unconscious Jay. He tightened his grip on Sasha’s arm as he lead her back down the hall into the living room. He growled in a whisper, “where’s my fucking baby?”
“She’s not your baby, Grip!” Sasha replied nervous and afraid. She had left Grip behind in Atlanta when she moved up there to be with Jay, but now there he was ready to potentially destroy everything she’d worked so hard to build Jay.
“You a damn lie! I did the math,” he snapped as he pushed her away from him and onto the sofa. He continued, “what kind of bullshit you up here feeding my little cousin? So you the tramp my aunt was talking about ruined her son’s marriage and that ain’t even his baby. You better get your shit packed up and back down to the A immediately. Nobody takes my kids from me! Nobody!”
“I told you she’s not yours. We already did a test and everything” Sasha lied, hoping that it would be enough to get Grip to back off and leave but she was sadly mistaken.
“Where’s the letter then?”
“What letter?”
“What? You think I’m stupid. The letter they send you saying they are sure beyond 99.99% the kid is or in your case isn’t.”
“I don’t have it. I…I threw it away.”
“Girl, you’ve still got your report card from first grade and you expect me to believe that you threw away something as important as this. I mean, you had to know I’d find you. Why wouldn’t you keep it so that you could rub it in my face?”
“Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
“Because one of you belongs to me. Now, if you want to give me my daughter now, then I suggest you have her things packed along with her when I come by tomorrow and check on Jay. If not then you better pack your shit up and get your ass back down to the ATL before the end of the month, before I have to send someone to come fetch you. Don’t worry, I’ll let Jay keep playing daddy until we find out what’s what.” Grip didn’t say anything more. He just grabbed a picture of Cree that was on an end table before he made his way from the apartment.
Justice had been driving around for hours, trying not to think about how the most important day of his life so far had turned into the absolute worst day of his life. He didn’t know where he’d been or where he was going for that matter. He just didn’t want to stop going. He had finally turned off his cell phone after he’d gotten countless phone calls from his aunt and Nikki. He didn’t feel like he could face them even on the phone, so he thought it best if he just continued to ignore them.
He drove through his old neighborhood until he saw some familiar faces standing outside of the same convenience store where his father had been killed. He hadn’t been inside the store since his father’s death but he’d hung out in front of it in his youth, unable to go inside. He parked his car along side the street close to a group of guys he knew from high school. He was greeted with the customary hand slaps and fist bumps, as they all congratulated him on his achievement. Soon, he was able to push what had happened as he listened to his old friends recount stories of narrowly escaping the police and their methods to stay alive in such a forgotten neighborhood.
There was a large, nearly decrepit park located across the street from the store. There was only a basketball court now, with the net from every goal missing, aligned by broken beer bottles, discarded cigarette and various drug paraphernalia. It was sights like this that made Justice glad his aunt and uncle had worked so hard to move them out of the neighborhood and he couldn’t figure out for the life of him why he and Jay had found it so necessary to hangout there during their high school years. But the day was beautiful. The sun was out and so were the women, walking around in next to nothing. It was legs and bootie as far as the eye could see and it quickly came by to Justice why he liked the hood so much. Apparently poverty sprouted some voluptuous women.
Shouting from the basketball court prompted of his friends to ask if he could give him and his eight-year-old son a ride home. Justice had seen the scenario on the basketball court play out countless times so he knew where it was about to go. He was ready to go anyway. The hood had lost his luster and the next time he made his way there he wanted to be doing something that would help improve it. He motioned for his friend to get in the passenger seat, as the voices from across the street escalated. It sounded as though they were arguing over a foul that had been called in the game. The little boy wanted to sit behind the driver’s seat so he followed Justice to his side of the car.
Justice had just hit the button to unlock the doors when the first shots rang out. The sound of girls screaming and babies crying, followed by continuous gunfire caused everyone to duck down. Before Justice could figure out what was really going on, a young guy who appeared to be no more than fifteen or sixteen ran by him; bare chest with his shirt wrapped around the trigger of the gun. His friend’s son was still standing, seemingly amazed by the gunfight going on right before his eyes. Justice grabbed him and pushed him to the ground before throwing himself over the child to shield him from any stray bullets.
He lie covering the child as the sound a bullets whizzing by and he could hear some hitting his car. He felt what at first felt like three small rocks hit him in the back but he just tried not to move. Scared for the child’s safety he pushed him under the car, where he thought he’d be safe until it was all over. The gunshots ceased. He glanced up to see the teenager running in the opposite direction away from the park. The boy cut through the driveway of some houses and disappeared. Justice looked around making sure it was safe to try to get up before he slowly lifted himself off the ground. He pull his friend’s son from under the car and called to his father to make sure that he was okay.
His adrenaline was at max capacity as his handed the frightened child over to his father. The three places were he’d been hit earlier began to burn causing his mind to immediately think the worse. Then came a blood-curdling scream from a girl on the front porch of a house behind the store.
“Mama call an ambulance!” she screamed, “A man got shot at the store and he’s bleeding.”
The words alone made Justice feel weak. His breathing was growing shallow while his body was growing cold except for the three bullet holes that were allowing blood to pour from his body. His vision was growing cloudy and everything sounded muffled. He could hear his friends telling him to fight and to stay awake but it was much harder to do so than he’d ever imagined. He wanted to live but the lulling siren of death was much more inviting than he thought it would be. His body went completely limp as he was caught by one of his friends before he fell face first to the ground. He cried inside knowing that he was going to die only a few feet from the same exact spot that gunfire had taken his father’s life
He’d always heard that you see your entire life in a flash right before you die, so he thought it only normal to think of the people and moments that meant the most in his life. He thought about the last time he saw his father and mother dancing together at their last family reunion. He thought about the way his Aunt Simone would put his clothes in the dryer on cold mornings to warm them up before he and Jay had to walk to school in the freezing cold. He thought about his Uncle Reece taking he and Jay fishing and letting them drink beer even though they were only sixteen, because he said fishing was all about drinking and telling tall tales. He thought about his graduations and how proud everyone was that he’d done it. He could see Justine when she was only a few hours old and as the bouncing gleeful little girl she was now and it hurt his heart to know that he would never get to see her as an adult. He could hear Robin laughing and telling him what he should do and how he should do it…and then he saw Nikki. He saw all of the things that could have been with her…their wedding…their children…them growing old together. As his memories started to fade like a candle being consumed by darkness, the memory of Nikki and his love for her remained and it sang the sweetest lullaby to him that allowed his close his eyes and let the darkness take him to a quiet peaceful place.
