Daddy Dearest (14 page)

Dehila didn’t respond. She was too busy typing her sixth message.

“You hear me?”

“Yeah! Damn!”

“Excuse me.
Damn!”

Dehila waited until she heard them leave out the house before going into Rafeal’s room. It was a room that she rarely had the pleasure to enter. Both her mom and uncle had forbid her because Rafeal was very protective when it came to his personal space. He had once come to her school in pajamas when she wore one of his hats.

Dehila wasn’t worried about Rafeal now as she lifted his mattress and discovered a hundred fifty dollars. She relieved him of fifty of it, knowing that it wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy her cravings.

The phone started ringing just as she was leaving out the house. She answered it against her junkie’s judgment.

“Hello?”

“Yes. This is Detective Taylor from Homicide. I’m calling in reference to Rafeal Johnson.”

“Uhhh, my momma ain’t home right now. Call back later.”

“Hold up for a sec, will you? I’d like to ask you a couple of questions concerning Mr. Johnson.”

Dehila sighed loudly. The fifty dollars was burning her pocket.

“What?!”

“We’re having a difficult time interviewing Mr. Johnson. He’s displaying some strange behavior, and I’ll like to know if he has a history of some kind of mental illness.”

Something dawned on Dehila. “You ain’t know? He’s crazier than a muthafucker.”

“I knew it! The way that he was answering my questions. I-“

“He’s paranoid schizophrenic. My mom always knew that he was going to kill somebody one day. That’s why she takes every gun that he gets.”

“How is he able to obtain a gun and he has a serious mental condition?”

“Niggas in the streets don’t care about that shit. As long as he got the guap, they’re going to sell it to him.”

“Sound like Mr. Johnson has the potential to be a dangerous man.”

“He can be. My mom gets him committed every time his aggression level rises. She was about to do it last week when he was planning on killing his co-workers.”

“Can you tell me which mental facility she checks him into? I might have to go that route in order to close this case.”

“You got to do what you got to do. But she takes him to Dorthea Dix.”

“Thank you for your time. Could you tell your mother to give me a call so I can update her on the actions that I took?”

“Okay, bye.”

“I haven’t given you-“

Dehila hung up and headed back to her uncle’s room. She had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t be needing any of the money any time soon…

 –—Chapter Fifteen–—

“Y’all need to hold the noise own so I can call out this mail,” yelled the correction officer.

Inmates could be heard mumbling obscenities under their breath. The C/O resumed calling out the mail, when Hammer walked away. It had been twenty-one days since Ron had been killed, and nineteen days since Warden Felts had denied Hammer’s request to go to the funeral. That was the blow that had sent him off the brink, and into the pool of depression.

“Hammer! Hammer!”

“What’s up?” he asked, Aaron, spinning around.

“You didn’t hear him? The C/O called your name for mail.”

“You sure?”

“Come on, now. You’re the only Bobbit in here.”

“’Preciate it.” Hammer made his way back to the mail line.

“Butler. You called me for mail?”

“I did, but you have to wait until I get back to it.” He then addressed the crowd. “I told you guys too many times that if you’re expecting mail, you better be up here listening for it. I’m not going to keep going over it like I don’t got anything better to do.”

“We ain’t trying to hear that bullshit!’ someone yelled. “Just do your job and pass that shit out!”

“Whoever said that needs to be a man and come say that shit in my face.” He waited for a few seconds for someone to step up before continuing. “That’s what I thought. A fucking pussy was talking.”

He continued calling out the mail, while Hammer wondered who wrote. The C/O finally handed him his mail and Hammer smiled when he seen Cataya’s name. It had been a long time since she had voluntarily written him.

Once he was in the confinement of his bunk, he opened the letter:

Dear Daddy,

How are you? Fine, I hope. I’m okay, just waiting for Granny to get better so I can go back home. I talked to her yesterday and she didn’t sound so good. Really scary. Anyway, I love my mom’s side of the family, but they’re thrown, if you know what I mean. Know that you are surprised to receive a letter from me; it was a long time coming. Actually, like you, I’ve been really stressed out with all that has been going on. I realized that if you let it, your troubles will make you forget about all of the good things that’s going on in your life. I say this because I morn so much over the mother that I lost, disregarded the fact that I have a father that does everything in his power to show me that I’m loved. And this isn’t fair to you, so I truly apologize. I hope that this doesn’t sound mean, but I won’t act like I’m distressed over Ron’s death. I do feel crummy over the way that it made you feel, and the fact that you couldn’t go to the funeral. Life throws so many unexpected curves that a person could be thrown off balance their entire life if they don’t figure out a way to adapt. If anybody can teach me about adapting, it’s you. So I look forwards to growing and confiding in you. I’ll write you again soon.

Love,

Cataya

“Hey, Hammer,” Aaron whispered, “You alright?”

Hammer unashamedly wiped the tears from his face. “I’m good. My daughter just wrote me a touching letter.”

“That’s alright there. I thought you received some more bad news. I was going to get my knives so we could take it out on somebody…”

Hammer smiled at his friend, who had been incarcerated for just as long as he had. They met ten years ago when they were about to clash over a card game. They ended up talking things out and had been friends ever since.

“I thought we promised not to take none of these sons of bitches out of their misery?”

“We did,” Aaron responded, smiling, “but you broke that treaty when you tried to take ole’ Bobby ‘The Chester’ out. I heard about that.”

“That wasn’t my work.”

He gave Hammer a knowingly look that said, ‘yeah, right’.

“I’m serious, that wasn’t my work.”

“Why would he put something like that on you if you didn’t do it?”

“Who knows why rotten bastards do the things they do. If he can have sex with a child, then he can do anything.”

“You’re right. I’ll probably break our treaty if I ever cross paths with him again.”

“You probably won’t. What do you got left, six months?”

Aaron nodded. “Yep. I can’t wait, too. I done threw my whole life away in the chain gang. This is it for me. I’mma find me a young tender, and have about three more younglings. What about you? You’re shorter than an ant’s dick, yourself.”

“My main concern is to establish a relationship with my baby. Her and my mom are the only ones I have left. Time done consumed everybody else.”

“Speaking of your mom, how’s she doing?”

“Good, I suspect. Her condition varies with the days.”

“She’ll be okay.”

“I hope so. I-“

“Carl Bobbit!” The C/O yelled. “Carl Bobbit!”

He stood. “What’s up Butler?”

“You’re wanted at the Chapel.”

“For what?” he asked frowning.

“Do I look like a phone book? Just go up there and find out.”

“Hold the fuck up!” Aaron intervened. “You better tone that shit down; you’re talking to a man!”

Instinctively, the C/O stepped towards Aaron. It was an everyday occurrence that an inmate used that tone with him. He had been taught in training to always show the inmates that he was authority.

This seemed incredible difficult to do when the man who was twice the size of him, seemed eager to close the gap between them. So he didn’t what any smart man would have done.

He offered Aaron some gum.

* * *

The two orderlies lead Rafeal down the hallway at a respectable pace. He didn’t seem too interested in their destination; he was too busy staring down at his tan footies. They were the only color that he wore, or allowed the orderlies to bring in his room.

They lead him in a room where a white man sat at a table, awaiting him.

“Good morning, Mr. Johnson. How are you feeling today?”

Rafeal looked up from his socks. “I’m feeling okay, Dr. Yessuh.”

“When you say that you are feeling ‘okay’, doesn’t that mean that you feel half and half this morning?”

The cameras mounted on the walls reminded Rafeal of the interrogation room at the Head Quarters. “No. It means that I’m feeling good, but I know that I can get better if I apply myself more.”

The psychiatrist scribbled something on his pad. “That’s good that you recognize that your recovery can’t be measured by the days. Okay, let’s talk about the event that led you up to this point.”

“Where do you want to start?”

“Let’s start at the warehouse of your old job. What really happened in there that resulted to you getting fired?”

“Uhmm…To be very honest with you, Dr. Yessuh, it was all my fault. I was running late that day, and neglected to take my medicine. So when I got to work, I was highly agitated in restless. That’s when I set my sights on Steve and turned nothing into something. I take full responsibility for that incident.”

“Interesting. Most people with our condition don’t admit to any wrong doing, they blame it on the voice in their head.”

“I use to do that before I sat back and analyzed everything. I came to the conclusion that I was just using my condition as a scapegoat for my actions.”

Dr. Yessuh scribbled on his pad again. “I amend you for that observation.”

“Wow! You must be in a good mood this morning.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because, usually you’re slow to believe anything that I tell you.”

The doctor didn’t immediately respond. He reclined back in this chair with an expression that Rafeal had never seen before.

“As you know, it’s the facility’s right to read any mail of a patient’s. In saying that, I happened to have read the letter that you sent to your former co-worker, Steven Richardson. It confirms a lot of what you just old to me. Now if you don’t mind, I wanted to move on to the incident that occurred at your home, that resulted in a man being killed.”

“That’s fine. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

“I’m listening.”

“I was having another one of my ‘mood swings’,“ he said, quoting with his fingers, “and my niece came in the living room to check on me. We were having a civil conversation about my condition, when I noticed a man out of my peripheral vision, peeping through the window. I became frantic, thinking that the Klu Klux Klan was coming to kill me, so I ran out there with my gun. The dude was waiting for me with is gun out. That’s…that’s…that’s when I,” he trailed off and dropped his head.

“It’s okay, Mr. Johnson. It was either you or him.”

“I just hope that god sees it that way.”

“He will. Trust me.” Dr. Yessuh then began to study the papers that were in front of him. “Mr. Johnson.”

“Y…Yes?”

“Due to my evaluation, I’m recommending that you be release…”

Rafeal didn’t hear another word that the doctor was saying because EL the One DeBarge was screaming in joy.

 –—Chapter Sixteen–—

Hammer barged into the Chapin’s office to find him on the computer, smiling. “Please tell that my mom is okay!”

“Oh, Bobbit!’ he said, closing the windows on the computer.

“Your mother?”

“Is she okay?”

“As far as I know. Oh! I didn’t call you up here for that.”

Hammer sighed in relief. “Maa-aan!”

“I told the officer to tell you not to be alarmed. Didn’t he tell you?”

“He didn’t tell me sh…nothing, with his dirty self.”

“The officers here are so mean spirited. It’s ridiculous! Have a seat, Bobbit. I have something to talk to you about.”

Hammer did what he was told, while thinking how he was going to curse Butler out when he got back to the dorm.

“I have some good news, and I have some bad news. Actually I have more bad news than I do good. Which one do you want first?”

“Tell me the bad new first. It’ll fit right in with all the other bad news that’s lingering around in my life.”

“Remember, prayer helps.”

Hammer thought about how his mother was still alive, and how his relationship with Cataya ha improved. He couldn’t do anything but acknowledge that was God was listening.