Anything for Profit 2: Nothing to Lose (10 page)

When they got to the kitchen door, Meka turned around and gave her brother a kiss on the lips and said, “go get your funky ass in the shower, nigga! And brush yo’ hot ass mouth too! Damn!” she said fanning her nose, giggling.

“Fuck you,” Ant quipped and playfully smacked her on the ass before she could make it out of the house and to her car. He watched as his sister backed out of the driveway and drove off. Still naked, he walked back into his bedroom and sat on the side of the bed next to his nightstand. He opened up a drawer and pulled out a small plastic baggy. He looked at the baggy disappointedly. It wasn’t even an eighth! He quickly made two lines on a small mirror and rolled up a crisp twenty dollar bill. After the bill was tightly rolled, he took both lines to the head like it was nothing. It wasn’t any high quality shit. But it would have to do… for now.

$$$

As soon as Meka stepped through the door to her mother’s hotel room, Gloria rushed up to her daughter and immediately began to bombard her with questions. “Are you alright? Where were you? Why didn’t you return my calls? Wha—”

“Mama, I went to see Ant and then spent the night at my homegirl’s house,” Meka said, interrupting her mother. Meka understood her mother’s concern, but she didn’t feel like being interrogated. Not this morning.

“How’s he doing? Everything alright?” she asked.

“Yeah mama, he good.” Thoughts of their incestuous night of passionate, love making was still fresh in Meka’s mind. The memory was enough to bring a smile to her face.

“I called Greenville Memorial and the lady said she’s ‘
not at liberty to discuss any information about patients over the phone’,
” said Glo, mocking the lady she’d spoken to over the phone. “We need to get down to the hospital and get Mike’s body. He ain’t got no other family to claim him, so it’s gonna have to be us to make all the arrangements and… bury him.” Glo had hesitated to utter those last two words as if it physically hurt her to say them.

At the mention of her other brother, Meka’s smile died a horrible death on her face. She suddenly felt guilty about enjoying the pleasure of Ant D’s flesh while their best friend, along with his baby mama and unborn child’s body was probably on ice in a hospital freezer. “Yeah, you right mama. Let’s go to the hospital and find out what the hell’s going on...”

$$$

“Ma’am. I’m sorry but we
do
not
have any patient by the name of Michael Smith on any deceased list,” said the pretty, middle aged black woman, in an annoyed tone. She sat behind the information desk and had just answered the same question five different times, in five different ways, and as calmly as she could. She tried to empathize with the two ladies. They were simply trying to locate a loved one. But her patience was quickly wearing thin.

“Are you
sure
?” asked Gloria. The woman behind the desk didn’t bother to respond this time. She just rolled her eyes and looked at Glo like she might’ve been a little retarded. Meka was getting ready to go the fuck off but her mama beat her to it. “Look
bitch,
a young boy that I raised like he was mine was just shot and killed Sunday. Along with his fiancé who was pregnant with his child. Now it’s been all over the news that he was brought to this hospital. And this is
supposed
to be the information desk so either you gon’ gimme some
goddamn
information,”-Glo read the lady’s I.D. “
Janine
, or I’ma snatch your high yellow ass up from behind that desk and
inform
you!” Meka rarely heard Glo use profanity. And she had absolutely never heard her use the lord’s name in vain, so she knew her mother was beyond upset and might just actually put hands on the lady. The information clerk must’ve felt the same way because she shrunk back from her desk and immediately called for security and her supervisor.

“Chill out Mama,” said Meka, as the rest of the lobby looked on nosily.

The supervisor, an elderly white woman, appeared with a huge, burly, security guard following behind her. “What seems to be the problem here, Janine?” Her tone was both authoritative and slightly condescending.

“Ummm, well these two women came up to the desk and asked about a patient by the name of Michael Smith, who they say died here within the last couple of days. I repeatedly told them that we have
no record of a Michael Smith being pronounced dead at this hospital within that time frame. They began making threats and using profane language so… I called you.”

The supervisor pushed her spectacles up on the bridge of her thin nose. “What’s the person’s name again?” she asked Gloria and Meka.

“Michael Smith,” they said together.

“Let me see something here,” said the supervisor as she leaned over Janine and got on the computer. Her glasses began sliding down her nose again but she just pushed them back up and kept looking for whatever she was searching for on the computer. She moved the mouse around and after a couple of clicks, she stood up and looked at Janine with a look of disdain. Then she looked at Gloria and Meka. “The reason we have no record of a Michael Smith being deceased is because… he’s not. The patient is in critical, but stable condition in the I.C.U. Room 210.”

Meka and Glo looked at each other wide eyed, with a sense of shock and utter surprise. Mike was alive!? They took off for the elevator. Once they got to the second floor, where the I.C.U. was located, they walked hurriedly down the hallway towards room number 210. There were doctors and nurses on the floor in their scrubs going from room to room, checking on the status of different patients. All of the patients required different types of intensive care depending upon their physical states. But the thing all of the patients on that floor had in common though was the sobering fact that at one point they had all been knocking on deaths door. Some still were, but for right now, their knocks remained unanswered.

Being on this floor gave Meka goose bumps all over her skin. She had herself been a patient on this very floor in room 215, only a few months before, and the memories were still fresh. As she and her mother approached room 210, Meka saw a familiar face. “Well, well, well. If it ain’t sleeping beauty herself,” said Detective Patterson, sarcastically. Detective Daniel Patterson was the investigating officer who had been assigned to Meka’s case. She remembered vividly his unwelcomed visit to her room when she had first awakened from her coma. His breath had reeked of stale coffee and cigarettes. She also remembered his insincere concern as he attempted to get Meka to tell him about the incident that had left her nearly dead and in a coma for weeks. True to the code of the streets, Meka played slow and Patterson left with absolutely nothing to go on. Now here this red necked muthafucka was again, outside of Mike’s room.
Fuck is this clown doing here
, wondered Meka.

“Isn’t this a lovely surprise? Didn’t expect to see you again anytime soon,” said Patterson, in his raspy, cigarette tinged voice. His tone was sarcastic and mocking as usual. He smiled, revealing teeth that had been discolored from many years of tobacco and caffeine usage. He positioned his body to keep Glo and Meka from walking past him.

“Look, shit mouth; we here to see my family, not have you blow your shit balls all in our damn face!” Meka snapped. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d move the hell out our way.” Patterson’s face turned crimson as Meka and Glo pushed past him and walked into Mike’s room. There was really nothing he could do (legally) to stop them. It was visiting hours. Of course, he could say that they had assaulted him as they forced their way past him, but after some serious thought, he decided against it.

Once they stepped into the room, they immediately stopped. Gloria turned her head, momentarily unable to look at Mike. He was laid up in a hospital bed, hooked up to a myriad of machines and tubes that all served a vital purpose in keeping him alive. Meka knew what some of them did because of her own previous experience. Intravenously some of the tubes fed him while others supplied much needed drugs to relieve the pain he was in. Machines monitored his vitals, and alerted the nurses that had been assigned to Mike of any change in his condition. There were other machines and tubes too, but Meka had no clue what the hell all of them did. She stared at him and wondered if she had looked the same way when she was laid up in her hospital bed.

Gloria turned her head back towards Mike and forced herself to look at him. It hurt, but the pain was a lot more bearable than dealing with the anguish she felt when she’d first heard he was dead. Mike had lost some weight, but other than that (and the tubes running up his nose and all over his body) he just appeared to be sleeping. Glo’ glanced down at the foot of the bed and for the first time, noticed that Mike’s right leg was shackled to the hospital bed.

“Meka, why they got them thangs on his leg?” she asked her daughter, pointing at the shackles with a frown on her face.

Before Meka could respond, Detective Patterson, who had been standing in the doorway spoke up. “Well, ma’am, I don’t wanna let the cat out of the bag just yet but uhhh, Mr. Smith here is looking at some serious time when he wakes up,” he said with a sardonic smile on his face.

“What the fuck is you talkin’ ‘bout Patterson?” asked Meka. “Muhfuckas killed his fiance’ and tried to kill
him
. How the fuck is he lookin’ at charges?”

“Well actually, those guys
did
kill him… a couple of times. The doctors at this wonderful hospital here just happened to bring him back. But once he sees what he’s being charged with, trust me… he’s gonna wish they wouldn’t have done him that favor; unless he cooperates with us of course.” Patterson winked at Meka and laughed. She glared at the detective and balled up her fists tightly. Damn she wanted to knock the shit out of that red necked, racist ass pig. Mike, who was like a brother to her, was lying up in a hospital bed fighting for his life and this cocksucker was making jokes about his situation!?

“Fuck you, you stank mouth muthafucka! You racist ass cracker! Your mama shoulda did the world a favor and swallowed yo’ worthless ass! Yo’ faggot ass ain’t shit without that gun!” Meka yelled out, loud enough for the whole floor to hear.

Right when Meka was about to swing, Gloria grabbed her by the arm and hurriedly rushed her daughter out of the hospital room before she did something stupid. She knew how bad Meka’s temper could be sometimes. On top of all the other drama that was going on, she definitely didn’t need her baby girl getting locked up in the county jail.

Once out in the hallway, Meka continued to hurl obscenities at Detective Patterson who just laughed at her as Gloria held her back. Patterson pulled out his cell phone and made a call. Within seconds, Glo and Meka were accosted by two uniformed deputies who not so nicely asked them to leave the premises. Obviously they had already been in the vicinity. “Get their asses outta here!” yelled Detective Patterson. The uniformed officers grabbed Meka and Gloria by the arms. Nurses and Doctors looked on as they were aggressively escorted to the elevator. Meka continued to curse Patterson out until the time the elevator door closed.

For a brief moment, Mike opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He thought he had just heard some familiar voices, but he wasn’t sure. He listened, but the voices were gone. It wasn’t long before all the morphine and assortment of other pain medications running through his IVs began to take effect again. Within seconds he had drifted back off to sleep and began mumbling to himself unintelligibly. He hadn’t even noticed the white man who had been standing by the door observing him. Or the shackles that chained him to the hospital bed.

CHAPTER 10

The hardest thing for any mother to do is to bury her own flesh and blood. For nine months she nurtures and carries that baby around in her womb. One day her water breaks and that mother is painfully forced to deliver her infant into the arms of a cold and uncaring world. The mother cries. Her tears are as much tears of joy as they are tears of sadness, knowing that the life she just gave birth to will someday be forced to experience pain. That mother knows this pain is inevitable and does everything within her power to protect her baby from all possible harm. Over the years, the mother tries to prepare her child for whatever the world may throw at her baby, but ultimately, she knows one day her little one will be forced to fend for themselves. She braces herself for the impact of life. But what she can never prepare for is the news that the newborn she gave birth to, fed, clothed and loved unconditionally had been murdered in cold blood. How do you prepare for that?

When Sandra Jones had first been visited by the Greenville County Sheriff’s Department and told about her daughter being shot and killed Sunday afternoon, she had simply refused to believe it. She laughed nervously and told the officer that they must’ve made some type of mistake or something. They must have the wrong girl, she said. The black female officer stood in Sandra’s living room, and attempted to explain what had happened. It was at times like these that Deputy Sharon Greggs really hated her job. She knew she had been chosen by her superiors to be the bearer of bad news only because she was a black female. The people in charge of the case had probably reasoned that Sandra would take the news better from her. But did the skin complexion and gender of the person telling a parent that their child was dead really make a difference? She doubted it, but those were the orders she’d been given, so she followed them.