Life Without Hope Read online

  Dre’ dug into his pockets removing a large wad of cash.

  “Where is the rest of it?” I asked, pointing the gun in his face.

  “Swear to God, that’s all I got.”

  “Nigga get flat on the floor,” I barked. Dre’ did a belly flop. If

  there had been any water I would have given him a ten. I turned

  to the big man. I still don’t know if he was looking at me, the floor,

  or what. Beads of sweat were cascading off of his forehead. “Let

  me get that up off of ya big man.”

  “Noooo!” Dre’ screamed. I thought he was more worried

  about the big lame than he was about himself. I thought that was

  strange. Everything was moving fast and this big nigga looked like

  he was thinking about bucking, so I cocked the gun.

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  He flinched, then slowly he reached into his pants and

  removed a pouch. Casually, I took a step back as he tossed it to me

  just in case this Suge Knight-looking nigga got any bright ideas

  and I had to bust a cap in his fat ass. I looked inside the pouch,

  bingo! Nothing but hundred dollar bills.

  Dre’ was still on the floor whimpering, “No, no, L! Cal, not

  you! Cal, not you!” His jabbering was inaudible to me because I

  was focused on the lame with the fat chain on his neck.

  “Big man, let me get that ice off of ya,” I insisted, pointing

  with the gun. His eyes shot daggers at me.

  “I’d beat your little ass if it wasn’t for that gun.”

  He took a step forward.

  “Yeah, and my aunt would be my uncle if she had balls. Save

  the rap and un-ass that ice.”

  He took the chain off, a little too slow for my liking, but I

  stripped his ass like a stolen Chevy and made him lie on his stom-

  ach on the dirty-ass carpet. I heard tales where dudes got killed

  doing robberies for failure to search the victims during a hasty get-

  away. While I was patting big man down, I found a loaded .380

  pistol in a holster strapped to his leg. The last thing I needed was

  to get shot in the back. While I was searching Dre’ he was shak-

  ing like a leaf on a tree. I felt something taped to his body; it ran

  from his back, around his stomach and taped to his chest. A police

  wire. Dre’ turned informant and I was being set up. My heart

  skipped a beat. Alarmed, I panicked as Dre’ began pleading.

  “L, it wasn’t meant for you, they want Lil Cal … Lil Cal …”

  My life flashed before my eyes. I was going back to prison, big

  time. I could visualize cell doors slamming. I had just robbed an

  undercover Narc Agent. Shit! In a fit of rage I kicked Dre’ in the

  face, threw the wire across the room and ran over to the window

  and looked out. Sure as hell the police were everywhere. I felt like

  a trapped animal. With only one way in and one way out, my

  mind raced in a million different directions. Quickly, I grabbed

  the old oak dresser and dragged it in front of the door creating a

  barricade between my destiny and me. As soon as I turned around

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  the cop was getting off the floor in an attempt to tackle me. I

  pointed the gun at him. “Don’t make me kill you!” He got back

  down on the floor. There was a thunderous noise at the door. A

  battering ram.

  “POLICE!” came the shout from behind the door.

  Wood was flying from the door like sharp metal. I ducked

  down and suddenly remembered the bathroom. I ran in there and

  kicked the door behind me. There was a small window over the

  toilet. I could hear footsteps as the front door came crashing

  down. Police were screaming, “Stay on the floor, stay on the

  floor!” to Dre’ and the Narc Agent. I broke the window, and cut

  my hand in the process. The police were at the bathroom door. I

  was moving fast. It was a two-story drop in a small gangway with

  a spiked fence at the bottom. Just as I got out of the window the

  bathroom door burst open. I jumped, descending downward. I

  fell inches from the fence and injured my ankle, as shots rang out,

  ricocheting above my head. As soon as I cleared the gangway I saw

  an elderly white man cleaning the windshield of his car. A platoon

  of cops turned the corner heading straight for me. I bum rushed

  the old man and knocked him down. I dipped into the car, which

  was an old Caddy, but in mint condition. The tires screeched a

  complaint as I pulled out, pedal to the metal. In the rear view mir-

  ror I could see a cloud of smoke and angry cops running behind

  me as I distanced myself, heading for Highway 301, doing a hun-

  dred miles an hour.

  It was Friday, about 8 o’clock in the morning and the traffic

  was dense. White folks in their cars gawked at me in horror. In the

  distance behind me I could see an array of police cars–their lights

  flashed as they all trailed behind me. It looked like a scene from

  the O.J. Simpson chase. I turned a corner on two wheels, and

  drove across the grass on 27

  and Martin Luther King Park. I was

  th

  driving like a bat out of hell, looking for a place to get rid of the

  car and run. I made another sharp right, then a left, driving in the

  wrong direction on a one-way street, traveling over a hundred

  miles an hour. I was not wearing a seat belt so I could make a

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  quick exit. In most high speed chases the police are notorious for

  causing wrecks that end in fatalities. I slowed the car down pulling

  into a driveway of a house and shifted the car into park. I had lost

  the police. With my hands on the steering wheel, I watched both

  ends of the street. My hand was bleeding, but I could not feel a

  thing. I was numb as my heart pumped ice water into my veins.

  Running from the police has always been like dancing with the

  devil. Getting away was like escaping from hell.

  A dark cloud that hovered over me reverberating a mighty roar

  shattered the lull of the morning silence. A police helicopter had

  located me. I did not panic. In fact, I just sat there thinking,

  there

  is no way in hell I am going to out-run a police helicopter

  . Then I

  thought,

  fuck ‘em!!!

  I was facing a thousand years in prison! I

  stepped on the gas and the car fishtailed out of the driveway hit-

  ting a parked car. If I was going back to the joint, they were going

  to have to catch me. It was on. This was some “ride or die shit”

  and the gas tank was full. I headed back to Highway 301 with the

  helicopter still on my ass. The wind wooshed around my ears as I

  continued to disobey the speed limit. Fuck it! The Bradenton City

  Limit was about five miles away and I knew there would be a

  roadblock full of rednecks and trigger-happy police. I watched too

  many episodes of “Cops” for this not to be true. I found a Pall

  Mall cigarette butt in the ashtray, lit it and inhaled deeply. The

  wind whooshed around my ears–I was driving at a hundred miles

  an hour. Up ahead police cars were coming from the opposite

  direction, on the othe
r side of the highway. I zoomed past them.

  They would have to turn around to follow me.

  A sign up ahead read, “Bradenton County” and I saw the

  famous roadblock. Hell, they were using eighteen-wheelers and

  police cars. High-powered rifles were aimed at my tires. I stepped

  on the brakes, the tires screamed and sent me sliding … sliding …

  out of control near the steel spikes they placed in the road to bust

  my tires. I made a ninety-degree turn and that old Caddy did the

  unexpected and leaped over a ditch, plowed over the guardrail,

  and up a steep hill. As I looked toward the sky, I squinted at the

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  bright sun as sweat burned my eyes. I could see that damn heli-

  copter was still on my ass.

  I turned right on a mean thoroughfare. The traffic was heavy

  but managed to part like the Red Sea for a Black man driving like

  a maniac with a police helicopter on his ass. I could see some of

  the expressions on them white folks’ faces as I zoomed in and out

  of the traffic changing lanes like I was in the Indy 500. I turned,

  entering the Bradenton Shopping Mall, nearly hitting an old lady

  pushing a shopping cart. The damn helicopter was so low now

  that it looked like it wanted to land on the car. I parked the car in

  the lee of a car wash, hopped out and walked briskly toward the

  mall’s entrance.

  Inside, the cool air hit my face and I had to adjust my eyes

  from the ardent sun. As I walked, no one appeared to be paying

  much attention to me. I passed a jewelry store; next to it was an

  ATM machine, and a Burger King restaurant. My mind was

  churning.

  Think fast! Think fast!

  I told myself. I knew any minute

  the mall was going to be flooded with irate cops that wanted to

  beat my ass. Pedestrians traversed the halls; it was semi-crowded so

  I blended in. Across from the movie theater was a clothing store

  called The Gap. I got an idea and walked inside. I swore to God,

  I had never been so happy to see another Black man in my entire

  life. The brotha greeted me with a warm smile as his eyes held me,

  giving me a once over. I looked like hell. There was blood on my

  shirt and pants from where I cut my hand. I dug into my pocket,

  pulling out two crumbled one hundred dollar bills.

  “I need a pair of size thirty-six pants and a large shirt. I’m in a

  hurr y. Oh, and you can keep the change,” I told the sales clerk.

  A few other people came into the store. I looked up, startled.

  The clerk sensed my apprehension, but the money motivated him.

  The brotha gave me a shirt and a pair of pants. I turned and saw

  the police through the window. The clerk did, too. I ducked inside

  the dressing room. They arrived in full force. I thought about a

  shootout as I took the guns out of my pants while changing. I felt

  my heart pounding in my chest so hard it felt like it was going to

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  come out. The dressing room was about the size of a small closet

  with one of them partial doors with slants. I watched as a Black

  girl entered, she was tall and regal in splendor. I needed a way out

  from the store. As soon as I stepped out of the dressing room and

  placed the bloody clothes in a trashcan, the police rushed in. The

  girl was about two feet away from me. A honey toned sister with

  hazel eyes and long silky brown hair. She watched me intensely as

  if she knew me or something. The police headed straight for me.

  Something dawned on her, it registered in her eyes and I could see

  it on her face. Her delicate lips formed a tight, thin line across per-

  fect ivory teeth with her jaw clinched in a contemptuous Black

  woman’s scowl. To this day, I don’t know what made me do it; fear

  and desperation will make a man do strange things. I grabbed her.

  She screamed, I laughed and played it off as if I knew her. I whis-

  pered in her ear, “Please, please Shorty help me!” I just knew that

  she felt the gun in my pants.

  Surprisingly, this Black woman that I did not know, embraced

  me tightly. Her euphonic laughter was the barrier that shielded

  me. Four heavily armed police officers with bulletproof shields

  and helmets walked right up to us. The clerk in the store looked

  as if he were going to shit in his pants. I could hear dogs barking

  like they were on to my scent, but through the crowd that had

  gathered, their barks went unnoticed.

  “Have you seen a Black man wearing black pants and a gray

  shirt?” the police questioned as they looked around the store.

  The clerk looked at me as if he were weighing his thoughts

  between the money I had given him or telling the officers I was

  right up under their noses.

  “No sir,” he finally answered.

  I felt the girl shake in my arms as the cop in the front of the

  store announced, “He ain’t in here.” They stormed out of the

  store. I realized that I had been holding my breath. The woman

  untangled herself from me and took a step back. It felt like her

  piercing hazel eyes bore right through my soul, and then somber-

  ly, she closed her eyes and shook her head. The expression on her

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  face said I can’t believe what I have just done.

  A customer asked the clerk for help, causing him to snap out

  of his daze of watching us, two complete strangers and the

  upheaval of the police. The girl turned and walked away. I could

  sense that she was troubled by her actions. I followed behind her

  like a lost puppy. On my way out of the store, I grabbed a Lakers

  hat and a pair of dark shades.

  All hell broke loose in the shopping mall. The woman was

  walking fast and the place was crowded. The police scurried about,

  in what looked like a mad frenzy, searching for me. Outside the

  sun was bright and there was not one helicopter in the sky now,

  but two. The other one had ABC News 40 stenciled on it. The

  mall parking lot had taken on a festive atmosphere with hundreds

  standing around gawking at the herd of police. I was able to blend

  right in as I followed the woman. She walked to the raggediest car

  in the lot, a rusted old Ford Mustang. Abruptly, she turned on her

  heels doing a half pirouette.

  “Go!” she pointed. “I’ve helped you enough.” She couldn’t

  look me in my eyes.

  *****

  11

  Chapter T

  wo

  Chapter T

  wo

  “A Black Woman’s Love”

  – Hope –

  I sat in my car reading the letter for what seemed like the

  umpteenth time. It was a letter from my brother, Br yant, on the

  lockdown. In the letter, he stated that he was a Muslim now and

  that he changed his name to Malik. Painfully, I thought,

  how was

  being a Muslim going to get the life sentence off of him?

  My eyes start-

  ed to water as I fought back the tears. In his letter, he vented his

  fr ustration, blaming it on the white man. As usual he went off on

  Black women, saying they we
re never there when a brotha needed

  them. He said I abandoned him when he needed me the

  most–when he was going through a severe drug addiction. In

  some ways he was right and his maudlin words hurt me to my

  core. Between going to college and working a full time job I neg-

  lected him. His poignant words,

  you never helped me,

  would for-

  ever be embedded in my mind. The white folks gave my brother

  a life sentence for eighteen rocks of cocaine. I have another broth-

  er, Marvin. He was on the run from the law at the same time. My

  father was in mourning. Daddy, he’s a good man, who has been

  working for the post office for as long as I can remember. My

  mother passed away from cancer when I was 6 years old.

  The noise from the helicopter disturbed my reverie. I looked

  up to see it hovering over the parking lot like some evil vulture

  about to pounce on its prey. That’s when I saw a car come to a

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  screeching halt inside the car wash and this fine chocolate brotha

  came walking out. I swear to God he looked identical to my old-

  est brother. I just had to do a second take. The resemblance was

  uncanny. Nervously, he looked up at the helicopter and entered

  the mall. For some reason, tears spilled over the brim of my eyes

  like a dam that suddenly burst. I was propelled into another time,

  another place. Black men being lynched and killed. They took my

  brother’s life for eighteen rocks of cocaine. It seemed like from the

  beginning, or as far back as I could remember when I was a young

  girl, Black men were always running. Running from life and run-

  ning from their responsibilities. I exited my car in a daze and then

  the police showed up in throngs. Too many white faces, all of

  them police, lawd-have-mercy. It hurt a sister to her heart to see

  so many Black men locked up. Six percent of the population, 90

  percent of all incarcerated. Until this day no one could convince

  me that this was not genocide, especially when the majority of the

  people that commit crimes are white. In my heart I really thought

  I could change the world. Maybe it was because I was young and

  naïve, just 21 years old. Anyway, that was why I was going to col-