In This Life Read online

  “A brick?! What the hell you mean by that?” He asked, feeling like the victim of another of her verbal assaults.

  “He gave her a blank stare, regretting what he was about to say. “Sasha, I’m leaving here in the morning.”

  She wrinkled her brow in disbelief. “How do you plan on doing that may I ask?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Oooh, you have a plan,” She mocked. “I hope your plan includes me and this crumb snatcher I have in my belly.” She watched him closely.

  “Girl, I’m not gonna argue with you. You know what’s up.”

  “Who said I was gonna argue with you? And, no, I don’t know what’s up. But I do know this much…neither one of us is leaving this hospital without the other.”

  “Sasha, don’t make me get out this bed,” Freddy said with his most intimidating stare.

  Sasha got in his face, pointing at his chest. “Right now, Freddy, I could whip your handicap, mummified-lookin’ ass with this here little finger.” She fingerprinted his forehead, pushing his head back.

  Freddy cracked up laughing. He loved Sasha’s sense of humor. Once his laughter subsided, he looked at her, blurry eyed. She was wearing her ain’t-a-dam-thing-funny scowl, lips curled to the side, neck tilted, as she fumed. “Freddy! Boy, don’t try me here. Just because I’m pregnant don’t mean I won’t show my ass in here! You need to check yourself. You been runnin’ around here playin’ G.I. Joe with that red ho’, talkin’ ‘bout she’s your aunt…Nigga pahleez! That lady’s rich. I’ve seen her in movies. She don’t even talk like us –“

  Listening to her rant, Freddy decided to try a nicer ploy, to sweet talk Sasha before she got violent and put that finger on him. He tried to smile. “Sasha, baby, you’re just gonna have to believe in me, have faith in us. –“

  “Don’t even try me with that weak ass line.” With arms folded over her chest, she took a step closer. “So this is how it’s going to be, huh? You get me pregnant and then run your sorry ass out on me. I don’t’ think so. I’ve got some bad news for you, boy. The next time you leave me, it’ll be over the dead bodies of me and your child!”

  “Don’t say that Sasha!” All the bass had left his voice. Sasha always seemed to do this to him, their negotiations ending with his solemn pleas.

  “Shut up, Freddy! My child is going to have a father, and I’m going to have a husband, and you’re going to be a man and start handling your responsibilities.” Her brown eyes flashed like novas. “We’re just gonna have to get to the bottom of Dirty Red’s murder and stop all this madness.”

  “When I get back, this time we’ll be a family and I intend to straighten this all with the police –“

  “No! Freddy, you’re not hearing me. You won’t be going anywhere without me. I can guarantee you that! “ She placed her hand on his, her demeanor changing. “Can I have a hug?”

  Freddy looked at her in surprise, detecting a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. He pulled her into his arms.

  “Freddy?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Please don’t try me… Freddy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get your hand off my ass.”

  “Buddy misses you.”

  “If you’d of left Buddy in your pants in the first place, I wouldn’t be pregnant right now and thinking about accepting applications for a full-time baby daddy.”

  “You have a baby daddy…me!” Freddy said, disgruntled.

  “Well, if you keep running off, you might come back one day and find someone else is feeding the baby.” Freddy looked up at her incredulously. She added, “Feeding it while it’s still in my belly.”

  It dawned on him what she was insinuating as she danced playfully out of his arms, laughing at the scowl on his face. But something else disturbed him. Sasha was up to something, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. She blew him a kiss as she headed out the door.

  After she left, he reclined the bed to its normal position. Exhausted, he pushed the button for the black and white TV to watch General Hospital. He casually reached his hand under the pillow to retrieve the cash and keys that Marilyn had given him. They were gone. Frantically, he searched under the covers and then the floor. Realization dawned, “Sashaaaa!”

  Chapter Eight

  At 2:40 pm, Dr. Utumo and Nurse Jones awakened a sleeping Freddy Thugstin.

  “I apologize for being late, but I had to perform an emergency operation on a young man about your age. He’d been shot, but unfortunately, he was not as lucky as you.” As the doctor talked, Freddy got the impression that the man really cared about what he was doing.

  “How are you feeling, Mr. Thugstin?”

  Freddy wanted to tell the man he felt like shit. “I feel great, Doc.”

  “That’s good… that’s good,” the doctor said as he walked to the other side of the bed. Nurse Jones waved at Freddy, giving him one of her sexy smiles.

  “Please raise your gown.” Freddy and Nurse Jones shared a conspiratorial smile, thinking about the last time he had raised his gown. Utumo was on to them. “Did I miss something? What are you two smiling about?” No one answered his question.

  The doctor proceeded to perform a series of rigorous examinations, nodding to the nurse as she removed bandages and tubes. At times, the pain was so excruciating that his eyes ran with tears. The doctor and nurse worked as a team, and she seemed to know exactly what to do whenever he nodded his head. He meticulously inspected the wound for infection before removing all one-hundred-eighty-four sutures and staples. It seemed like some sort of Chinese torture as each was slowly and carefully pulled out, Freddy wincing and grunting in pain.

  When the doctor finished and Nurse Jones left the room, Freddy signed with relief, his body covered with sweat. He was about to thank the doctor, but Utumo’s hawk-arched brow compelled his silence. “If you don’t get the proper rest and nourishment, your body will fail you miserably and you will die.”

  Freddy perked up. “Doc, I’m one of them warriors from Africa.”

  “Oh yeah? What tribe were you a warrior of?” The Doctor asked humorously.

  “I come from a tribe called the Ghetto. It was all part of the same boat, just a different stop off when they brought us over here.”

  “Okay, warrior,” the doctor chuckled, “I’m not giving you my permission to leave, you understand. In fact, I absolutely forbid it, for the record. Now off the record…” The doctor extended his hand and Freddy shook it hesitantly. The contact went on a second to long and Freddy had an uncanny feeling the man was trying to tell him something.

  Utumo reached in his pocket and withdrew a brown bottle and a clear one, each containing pills. “These are antibiotics,” he said. “You must take these. Do you understand me?” Freddy nodded.

  “This brown bottle contains pain killers. You must be very careful how you take these. I’m giving you a prescription that you can fill if you need more. I know that by the time I arrive there tomorrow, you will be gone.” The doctor shook his head somberly. “You must learn to listen to your mind. Your spirit will guide you safely, and only then, can you stop running.” Utumo handed Freddy the bottles and the prescription and walked to the door. He turned suddenly and saluted Freddy with a Black Power clenched fist raised in the air. Freddy returned the salute as the doctor left the room.

  ******

  Dinner arrived a few hours later. Freddy picked at his food, fidgety, without appetite. However, he realized he was going to need all the strength he could muster, so he forced himself to eat.

  Freddy’s mind tried to unravel the labyrinth of problems that had plagued his life, worrying at it like a puzzle with too many pieces. Dirty Red was dead. Sash said Dee had shot up in the air. So who the hell shot Red?

  And then there was the matter of Marilyn Fox. She had too many secrets. Why was she married to that hoodlum Billy Dawson? His character was insidious, and the man had once tried to kill him.

  Freddy reflected back on the scene when they first
met. He recalled seeing her kiss that white cop, and now that he thought about it, that cop’s face was familiar. A heaviness descended on Freddy, perhaps a headache coming on. Too much was happening all at once. It felt as if the whole world was on his shoulders.

  He lay awake into the wee hours planning his escape. He tried to practice walking, but his legs failed him miserably. With confidence, he told himself, “In the morning my legs will be stronger. In the morning I will leave. In the morning…”

  ******

  Freddy Thugstin awoke at 7:40 a.m. with alarms vibrating his skull, eyes bucked wide open. With less than three hours of sleep, the warnings in his head were loud and insistent. In the quiet hum of the room, Freddy listened to his mind. The police were in the building. He could feel them like he felt the flesh on his bones. Somehow, he had overslept. He sat up hurriedly, feeling excruciating pain in his chest. He placed his feet on the floor, and like a newborn calf, he balanced himself, straining, standing, teetering, bones aching.

  Suddenly he was dizzy and then nauseated, his head spinning, perspiration soaking his gown. Painfully, he summoned his soul for strength, he had to move… Weak and feeling fatigue, all of his meager new strength dissipated, he sat back down on the bed, exhausted.

  He stared at the door. They were coming--Fermen and his buddies, with the nice silver bracelets for his wrists. Freddy hunched forward, mouth agape, trickles of sweat dangling from his chin.

  Upset that his legs had failed him again, Freddy told himself with a great deal of determination that on the count of three, he was going to get up and walk out that door. Walk or crawl. “One… two… thr—“

  The door crashed open as if it had been hit with a battering ram. Freddy jumped, startled, hands clenched into tight fists. The police were famous for their assaults on black males. To his utter surprise, Sasha came rushing through the door looking like a maniac, hair askew.

  “Girl! Freddy lamented, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  She ignored his angry outburst. “Hurry baby! Hurry! The police are everywhere downstairs and they act like you’re a murderer or something.” She rushed to him, knowing something was wrong from the grave expression on his face. “Come on baby, let’s go!” Her voice pleaded as her eyes narrowed.

  “Sasha,” he drawled in barely a whisper, “My legs won’t move. I can’t walk.” Embarrassed, he looked down at the floor.

  “Yes… yes you can walk. I’ll carry you. Lean on me,” Sasha said as she reached down and picked him up, using every sinew of her strength. He placed his arms around her neck, and together they struggled with the inertia of dead weight until finally he was able to stand. He took one wobbly step before they both collapsed on the bed.

  Sasha jumped back up quickly as if Freddy were trying to drag her down in his own languid self-destruction. Her eyes blazed with fury as she looked at his pitiful body.

  Panting, physically depleted, Freddy whispered, “Sasha, leave me here. I’ll be okay. Go!”

  “Nooo!” She shrieked. “Look at me,” she said, pulling up her blouse, exposing her belly. “You see this!” She screamed. “Within me is a child… our child! This child will never know his daddy because your sorry ass refused to get up and walk for us.”

  “Sasha, no, please don’t say that,” he crooned, trying to reach out and touch her stomach.

  She slapped his hand down, and with tears streaming down her face she ran out the door, abandoning him alone with his fears.

  He lay there less than a minute when the door again crashed open and Sasha appeared, pushing a wheelchair. “Freddy,” she begged plaintively, “Baby, you’ve got to get out that bed. Pleeeze baby, walk!”

  The rising crescendo of her pleading voice seemed to empower him as if she had reached into a hidden reservoir of untapped strength. Feeling his vitality anew, Freddy stood straight up like a rocket, robust with energy, and took two hobbling steps to the wheelchair and nearly fell in.

  Sasha kissed his cheek, grabbed his slippers and threw his robe over him as she whisked him out the door and down the corridor. The patter of her feet signaled her urgent desperation as she maneuvered to avoid running into people.

  She raced to the elevator and pushed the button. It had been nearly four minutes since her arrival. The elevator door chimed as it opened slowly. The loud static of a sputtering radio emerged from within as they looked at each other thinking, Police!

  Chapter Nine

  A light rain began to fall, misting the city in a sheet of glazed, silvery luster that appeared to sparkle and shine. On this magical night, orange and blue neon flashed synchronously across the face of Freddy Thugstin as he waited in front of the Foxy Lady Lounge. Trickles of rain cascaded down his handsome face. The sensation felt good, and besides, he needed to get his thoughts in order. People stared at him as they passed him in a hurry. He seemed not to notice them, occasionally licking his top lip, tasting the sweet rain.

  The cab appeared suddenly, its bright lights blurring and horn honking. Freddy Thugstin flinched as he took a step back, the noise breaking his reverie. The cab came to a screeching halt a few yards in front of him. He quickly dashed in.

  “You call a cab?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where to?”

  “46th and Parrie, the Ritz Hotel.”

  The cab sped off into the light traffic. Freddy leaned back into his seat, gazing out the window into the mysterious night. He went over in his mind once again why Billy Dawson had warned him about Marilyn Fox, how he was to be extra careful with her. This was his first assignment, to act as her chaperon and bodyguard. Ah, to guard the body of the lovely Miss Fox. What an assignment.

  He had grown up as a small boy watching her on Channel 2 News as the first black, female sportscaster that the city of Chicago ever had. Freddy enamored with her good looks as millions of other men had been. To be paid to watch her was like asking the cat to watch the mouse. Hell, he would have paid for the privilege of watching her.

  However, one thing was sure. There were some shady circumstances to say the least. Over the past few years, Ms. Fox had drifted out of the limelight of her telegenic profession and into the obscurity of modeling and other clandestine private work. Tonight, after months of painstaking negotiations, her stubborn resolve shattered into a thousand pieces, each weaving large dollar signs. Against her better judgment, she had accepted. The anonymous millionaire had once again proven that, indeed, everyone had a price, offering her and her agent more money than she had ever been offered in her entire life.

  Freddy savored the placid serenity of his thoughts as the cab sliced through the rain. He remembered how she had boldly flirted with him at the restaurant. Lost in his thoughts, he smiled to himself as he dreamily looked out the window.

  “Hey!… Hey!… Hey you!” The driver spat rudely at Freddy.

  Freddy’s smile faded fast as he dug into his pocket to retrieve the cab fare. The driver looked at him strangely and Freddy knew what he was thinking. They were in front of the Ritz Hotel, for Freddy had completely lost track of time. He paid the driver and gave him a tip for thinking he was going to run.

  A gentle Chicago breeze rustled the wind as tiny ringlets of rain brushed his face. He took the steps three at a time. As the doorman was off duty this time of night, he opened the door himself and walked in.

  To his surprise, at exactly the same moment, Marilyn Fox was descending the stairs, her beauty stunning, splendidly regal. She shot him a piercing stare that seemed to arrest his movement, even his breathing. As she neared, her long, delicate eyelashes began to flutter and blink in a strange way, as if she was trying to recognize him.

  No. No, it was not him she was looking at. She was looking over his shoulder at a long, black limousine sitting idle at the curb, its windshield wipers swishing. The rain danced a silver ballet in front of its headlights. The long automobile appeared ominous, the occupants ensconced in anonymity behind the dark tinted windows.

  Freddy turned back to he
r as it dawned on him what was written on her face: fear. Neither of them spoke, but Marilyn’s concern was self-evident. Even her attire seemed to dictate the atmosphere, the her black, knee-length dress with matching gloves and pumps relieved only sparingly by the lambent white pearls at her throat. In her left hand she held an umbrella. Her silent nod to him seemed to be a weaver of courage and together they walked towards the hotel’s entrance. Freddy quickly opened the door as Marilyn opened her umbrella and hesitated at the top of the stairs, looking down at the waiting limousine gleaming in the night. She took hold of Feddy’s arm and descended the stairs, her heels signaling her trepidation.

  The night was still and unusually quiet, a lazy breeze blowing from the east as the chauffeur got out of the car holding his hat. He opened the rear door, the hat concealing his face in the dimness of the night. The chauffeur seemed not to notice them.

  Marilyn got in first and Freddy followed, sitting across from her. Inside the spacious automobile, a classical melody played softly, a bar with all kinds of gadgets positioned equidistant between them.

  As the car began to move, Freddy detected the silhouette of a man hunched in the corner, almost directly across from him. The limited light from the tinted windows obscured his vision, so he leaned forward to the edge of his seat, straining to get a better look. With a tempestuous clap, lightning flashed through the sky, briefly illuminating the figure in the cabin of the car. Freddy’s eyes nearly stretched out of their sockets! What the hell? It looked like an apparition of some kind, the head abnormally large, deformed. And something else was perched on the figure’s lap, with little beady eyes that glowed in the dark. A small boy? Nude? His hand moved unconsciously to the car’s door handle as he looked in the direction that Marilyn was sitting. It was too dark for him to see her, and he was just about to call her name…