Blackout: Stand Your Ground (9 page)

           
“How do I know you’re not trying to get revenge? I don’t trust you! Get away from us!”
Meesie
screamed.

           
The man walked over and pried
Meesie’s
hand off of
Jawan’s
body. “What’s wrong with him?” He asked.

           
“Get the fuck away from us you black thief! Get the fuck away!”
Meesie
screamed as she punched him as hard as she could. “Get away!”

           
“Stop it
damnit
! Stop it! I have a full tank of gas! Get your ass in the truck and get ready to drive it. I’m about to put him on the passenger side while the crowd still has that blockade up. You better go as far as you can and don’t look back for shit. I think-”

           
“I would, but I can’t. His seizures are just going to get worse. I dropped his
medi
-”

           
“I picked up everything you dropped and placed it into the bag sitting on the floor.” The man said as he picked
Jawan
up and placed him into the truck. “I’m sorry ma’am. For real, I’m honestly sorry that all of this had to happen. Take care.”

           
He stood back and watched as
Meesie
jumped into his truck and peeled off. He dropped his head in the memory of his best friend. It hurt him, but it was real; and he had to endure it. It had actually been his idea to rob the house, but only because he thought it would be vacant. He never thought he would end up getting in the middle of a serial killer’s rampage. His best friend had given up his most valuable possession; life, so it was only right that he give up what he valued the most at the time, his truck.

***

           
Meesie
drove 80 miles an hour as she put separation between their problems and their future. Their entire life had changed in the course of one evening, and it was difficult to ignore the way they ended up in worse shape over the verdict than Zimmerman did. Not only had a verdict altered the course of their family’s future, but it had also potentially ended their lives.

           
Meesie
was angry at the justice system and wanted to lash out, but didn’t know who to last out on. She didn’t even know where they were headed, she was just driving. She exited the freeway and decided that she was going to go sit in the park for a while until she figured out what the best move would be.

On the way to the park, she noticed that a huge cloud was quickly wrapping over the city. “That’s what you all get! You motherfuckers are so prejudice and arrogant and evil, that every now and then God has to wash the oxygen off from the filth in which you speak!”

           
It was pouring down rain by the time she parked the truck. The rain was coming down so hard that she just knew that the city of Sanford would be flooded. Right after she parked, she started the truck back up. She realized that she would never have another God-given way to escape from Sanford unless she left right then and there in the midst of one of the biggest storms she had seen in years.

           
“
Mmm
toommm
.”

           
Meesie
was startled when she heard
Jawan
make such a strange sound. “Baby are you ok?” Her heart was about to beat out of her chest and sweat beads started forming on the surface of her forehead. She remembered that she had the pills in the bag, and reached inside and grabbed them with the quickness. She opened the bottle and poured 3 pills into her hand. “Here
Jawan
, take these pills baby.”

           
“Hmmm? O.K.
Meesie
.”
Jawan
said in a strange tone.

           
Meesie
stretched her hand across the truck so that
Jawan
could get the pills, but he hadn’t budged. “
Jawan
, take the pills baby.”
Meesie
whispered. “Take the pills so that we can figure out what to do next baby. Please just take your seizure medication.”

           
“I’m trying
Meesie
!”
Jawan
screamed. But he hadn’t moved at all, he was just
laying
there.

           
Meesie
got nervous when she didn’t see any movement from him. Seeing him
laying
there limp and saying he was trying to move nearly made her piss on herself. “
Jawan
… can you just
please
take these bills baby? I love you and I
wanna
be with you forever, and all I need you to do is take these pills. I’m not asking you to make any decisions or anything; just take these pills baby.”

           
Tears ran down
Jawan’s
face as he lay there limp. “I’m going to die
Meesie
. I’m going to die!”

           
“Don’t fucking say that
Jawan
! Take the motherfucking pills!”
Meesie
screamed in the small truck. The rain was coming down even harder now, and it rattled her nerves knowing that her future husband was unable to move. As long as she had known him, that was always his number one fear, being paralyzed from a seizure. He always said that he’d rather die than to be forced to live without being able to help himself. He was adamant about choosing death over choosing to live like that, and had even made
Meesie
sign a form along with a witness giving him that right.

           
At the time,
Meesie
couldn’t have ever imagined
Jawan
being unable to move. She signed it because she was going to be sure that he took his medication every single day that he was supposed to. She wasn’t going to let him get into a situation like that. That was what the plan was, at least. She shook as she stared into the pouring rain. There was nothing else she could do to save her family and she hated herself for that.

           
She hated herself, the people who tried to rob their place, hated
Jawan’s
uncle, hated Nay-Nay, and most of all she hated Zimmerman.

           
She hated the fact that a grown ass man could get away with killing a young black and unarmed teenager. She hated the justice system for allowing
Jawan’s
father to be killed in the same manner. She hated it for Oscar Grant, Jordan Davis, Sean Bell, and the thousands of others. All of the passion that
Jawan
carried over from the death of his late father had brewed over many years. That brewery created a person comprised of the finest fire that a modern day black man could possibly elicit.

           
And that was why she loved
Jawan
.

           
He was powerful and strong. He was not the typical man, and there were no typical men who could compare to him. His passion led him to standing his ground, and showed her how to stand hers as well. He was a man who, if he would have been given the opportunity; he could have been a great leader to the world one day. If he were interested in politics, then he could have been a president one day.

           
“
Meesie
. Please take me to the hospital. I’m going to be better off than you because of my medical condition and my current situation. So just do as I say. If they catch us both, we both run the risk of being murdered by the police; and we can’t go down like that.”

           
Meesie
shook her head as tears flowed and dripped down her face. “
Nooo
Jawan
! I don’t
wanna
live without you baby! I don’t want to leave you! I love you!”

           
“
Meesie
, I love you too baby. But we have to do what we have to do for our future. If we don’t do this, then our bloodline will end right now; and we’ll have disrespected the bloodlines that have been passed down to us. We’ll have disrespected our grandmothers and great grandfathers. We’ll have let our heritage down. We have to keep pushing
Meesie
. I want my son or daughter to be alive in 21 years so that she can possibly make the difference in the world that I could have made. Drop me off
Meesie
.”

           
Meesie
took in everything he said and realized that she had no choice. She drove the truck slowly at first, because she wanted to spend as much time as she possibly could with her fiancé. She drove slow because those were the last memories she was going to have of him.

           
“
Meesie
. Please hurry to get me there. I’m dying baby!” And
Jawan
passed out.

***

           
Meesie
watched as the nurses pulled
Jawan
out of the small truck. She watched as they rushed to get him into the hospital so they could see if they could help him. She stood there in the rain and allowed her hair to become drenched in nature’s wrath.

           
She looked down and saw that the puddle she was standing in had completely hidden her shoes. She thought about the baby she was carrying and knew that she hadn’t eaten in quite a while, so she needed to do that immediately. In a weary stroke of exhaustion, she decided that she would do the right thing and kill two birds with one stone.

           
She was going to drive to the police station.

***

           
When she got there, her plan was to turn herself in. She was going to admit that she played a role in the murders, no matter how jacked up the United States justice system was. She was going to show them that every black woman and every black man wasn’t the same. She was going to go against the grain, and do the unexpected. She picked up the pistol and wrapped it in a shirt. She was going to turn in the murder weapon also, so that they would know that she was serious when she came in there.

           
She stepped out of the truck, closed the door and started walking. She’d walked about 15 feet when somebody ran into her out of nowhere. She fell to the ground and sat up with a frown on her face. It was a black female police officer walking to the car with her white partner. “Little slut, you watch where you’re going. I’m tired of arresting you prostitutes for the same damn charge.”

           
A sharp pain overtook
Meesie’s
stomach, and she bent over with her arms folded over it. “I’m pregnant you fuckin pigs!”
Meesie
screamed as loud as she could. The scream was faint because the force in which they hit her had literally knocked her breath away.

           
“Well hopefully you lose it! That way you can save yourself the embarrassment later. You prostitutes never know who the baby’s father is anyway.”

           
“
Ughhhh
!”
Meesie
screamed as she stood up slowly. She looked down at her stonewash jeans, and it looked like somebody had thrown red Kool-Aid on her. She was soaked in her own blood. Blood of her flesh, of her soul… blood of her child. She stared at the red and couldn’t develop any understanding.

           
She had come to the jail in order to do the right thing, and the very moment she tried to sit down; they ran her over, possibly killing her unborn child. She looked at the officers as they stood at their patrol cars laughing away at
Meesie’s
mishaps. “I’m not a prostitute!”
Meesie
screamed, which caused them to laugh even harder. They pointed their fingers at
Meesie
and clutched their stomachs the same way that she did.

           
Meesie’s
was clutched in pain, and the female officer’s stomachs were clutched from painful humor.
Meesie
couldn’t believe her eyes. She couldn’t believe that people who were supposed to be protecting the community from danger, seemed to be the main ones projecting the community with danger.