L.A. Blues III (14 page)

I didn't know how long I slept but it was dark outside when I woke up. Shadows shifted up under the door, and I could see the stars through the skylights. The sky was an indigo and periwinkle–looking color tonight. A crescent moon only sent a sliver of light. A haunting wind howled and whistled through the cabin. I was feeling spooked.

I heard someone coming into the cabin. “Is that you, Reverend Edgar?” I called out.

I didn't hear anyone reply. I looked up at a tall, big-boned Black man.

“What do you want?” I asked. My Glock was in my purse, which was near me.
Lord, I will kill anyone who tries to mess with my baby.

“Miss, I don't want anything. I just need to stay for a minute and catch my breath.”

“Who are you?”

“Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you.”

All of a sudden Angel let out a wail.

“Oh, you have a baby?” He lifted his eyebrow in surprise.

I gave him the look that I believed a tigress would send out to any threat to one of her cubs. I pulled my baby close to my chest. I reached for my Glock, which I kept under the pillow next to the wall. I think my intruder saw the fierce look in my eyes because I watched him ease toward the door.

“Don't worry. I'm getting ready to leave. Do you have a car?”

“No.”

With that the stranger left as quickly as he came.

I got up and locked the door and put sticks in the windows.
What was that all about?
I wondered.

I thought about how easily this man had slipped into the cabin and it occurred to me that it wouldn't be anything for the hit man to find me up here. I started mapping out my plan. I had to get off this mountain and out of here.

I tried to get a signal on my phone and couldn't. I slept lightly that night. I woke up and fed the baby as needed. I went back to sleep. I think I was dreaming because I heard my deceased father's voice: “Wake up, Z. You've got to be alert. You're the queen now and you've got to protect your castle. You have a baby to protect now.”

I instantly woke up. I thought of chess, and how the queen was often used to checkmate the king.

I wrapped up my baby, kissed her, and made her a soft bed of towels, then placed her in a safe corner of the room. I moved the room divider in front of her.

I pulled out my Bible and opened it. I began to pray Psalms 23. “‘Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil.'” I rubbed my ankh for extra protection. I knew I was going to need both my Christian and my African mojo to help me.

Suddenly, I heard a slight jiggling of the door. Even with the lock on the door, it slipped open easily. I thought about how easy it was for burglars to get into any house they really wanted to, because that was what they were trained to do—pick locks. It was two in the morning. For some reason, I stayed calm inside. I could hear soft footsteps tiptoeing across the hardwood floor. I knew in my spirit it was “the Executioner.”

I had the lights out, but I could quite clearly see the silhouette of a rather tall man with leather gloves and a mask on. He had a 9 mm with a silencer at the end. He was said to be an expert marksman.

“I've been waiting for you,” I said softly when he stepped into my room.

I took the first stone and threw it. I missed him. I really don't know what I was thinking; I was hoping to knock him down like David in the Bible. The falling of the stone did alert me to where he was standing because I could hear a “Whoosh” sound from where he was standing.

My would-be assassin aimed to shoot me, but he hesitated when he saw the baby blanket in my arms.

I had wrapped up a towel inside the blanket, put it in my arms, and acted like I had the baby in the bed with me. Seeing what he thought was a baby made the Executioner hesitate—unfortunately, a second too long. Study long, study wrong. I got the drop on him.

I used the wrapped towels with my Glock covered up in it to shoot “the Executioner.” The towels were burnt through from the gunfire. I hit him straight between the eyes.
Bull's-eye.

Once again, it was down to me or him. I hated to kill again, but this time around, I had a child to take care of. I planned to be here to raise my child.

 

“Miss, did you know the person who was trying to kill you?” The police looked over his pencil as he took the report.

I glanced around the cabin's living room and saw the yellow cordoned-off strip for the crime scene, and the body bag. The room was swarming with deputies and police officers.

“No.” I held my face straight. I didn't know who I could trust. I didn't know who was behind killing the guards at the safe house. I didn't know who the mole was, so I had to be careful. Someone had to have leaked that information as to my whereabouts. I glanced over at the Bible sitting in the rocking chair where I last left it after I called the police when I was able to get a signal. I thought about how Lazarus had been resurrected from the grave.

“Lezra de la Croix,” I answered.

I remembered how in the movie,
Hurricane
, Denzel, playing as Rubin Carter, said the young boy who found his book, wrote to him, and help eventually get him released from prison was named Lezra, which was a derivative of Lazarus who had been raised from the dead. I guess I was like Lazurus. I'd almost died twice, surely had been spared and I felt as if I was raised from the dead,

The police wrote down the name and didn't ask for ID. “Well, we have a nationwide manhunt going on up here for a police killer. He used to be on the LAPD and was fired. He's gone on a killing spree of police officers and their family. He was last spotted in this area. Have you seen a man who looked like this? His name is Christopher Dorner.”

He showed me a picture of a suspect Christopher Dorner. His face looked familiar. I kind of remembered him from when I was on the LAPD. I looked at the picture and shook my head.

But I was lying. I'd seen him before all right. He was the intruder who came in the cabin and left me alone when he saw I was with my baby. I thought about how disenfranchised I felt when I lost my job, but who knew what could make a person crack?

The interviewing officer turned to me. “Well, this looks like this was a professional hit man. He has a passport from Italy. He had a silencer on his gun. You're lucky to be alive.”

“Sir, thank you, but I don't know who would do something like this. I had my baby by myself. How soon can you take me to the hospital?”

“I'm sorry, miss, but the roads are kind of shut off. We've got a standoff with the suspect down the road from here. We'll get you out of here as soon as we get the word that this stand-off has come to an end.”

Outside I could hear sirens blaring. That was the most noise I'd heard in this isolated place. I peeked out the window and saw LAPD squad cars, sheriff department cars, CHP, and SWAT teams farther up the hill. Helicopters buzzed around. I could smell smoke and fire, and for a moment, I panicked. I knew when there are fires up in the mountains, people have to evacuate, so what would I do? But then I gave a sigh of relief. Help was here and I'd be able to get to the hospital—eventually.

 

I went and looked out the window, and saw that the fire seemed to be contained farther up the hill.

I stood up, walked to my bedroom, and picked up my baby, Angel. She was wrapped in a yellow blanket I had crocheted for her. I kissed her all over her soft face. A resplendent sun streamed through the window. For her to be a preemie, the paramedics said she was a healthy baby—no jaundice, no breathing problems. She was already a little blessing.

Out of nowhere, Reverend Edgar came rushing through the front door.

“Zipporah, are you all right?” His face was twisted with agony and worry. “I've been trying to get you on the phone.”

He grabbed me and hugged me. Then he looked down and saw baby Angel lying in my arms.

“Are you okay? Wait a minute. What's this?”

“This is my baby.”

“What?” he stammered in disbelief. “When did you have the baby? How did you have the baby?”

“She birthed herself,” I said simply.

“Oh, my God. I should've never left you here alone. The snowstorm blocked me out, and then this manhunt. But I was able to get through the roads since I came up as a fireman. I had the truck drop me off here. They have law enforcement and fire departments coming in from different counties. It's a media feeding frenzy out there.”

“Well, she came early. You had no way of knowing.”

Then, Reverend Edgar looked up and saw the body bag and the police standing around taking the police report.

“What happened here?” Looking shocked, he treaded over to the crime scene, trying not to disturb any of the evidence.

The police, who took the homicide report, spoke up to Reverend Edgar. “This is clearly a case of self-defense. Poor defenseless woman with a newborn baby.” He clucked his tongue, and shook his head. “I'm so sorry, miss, that you had to go through this.”

Reverend Edgar rushed across the room. “You poor baby,” he said, hugging me and baby Angel close. “I'll never let you go.”

I had to hide my face in his coat collar. I didn't want him to know what I was really thinking.
Poor defenseless woman, my foot!

In this journey, I had learned that women are much stronger than we think. I thought I would not be able to have a baby as a single parent, but not only did I get through the pregnancy, I delivered her by myself. I hoped I would be a good parent, in spite of all the death threats around me. Angel was my linchpin to love and to life. I didn't love Reverend Edgar, and I didn't think he loved me either, but, I knew he was a good man and had been a good friend to me in a time of need. I had no idea what the future would bring, and at this point, I couldn't worry about it.

Although I never thought I wanted a family, in actuality, I did want a family. That's why I wanted to reunite with my siblings. Now that I was a mother, I felt like I'd come full circle. At first, I felt like I was not the motherly type. But then again, I'd never had a baby, so I didn't know I'd feel such a fierce love. Now, that Angel was here, I felt like a mother, as if I now knew what life was all about. I was happy to have my baby. I was happy that I now had my siblings and my biological mother back in my life too. Most of all, I was grateful that God had brought me through my delivery safely. For now, Baby Angel and I were safe.

I guess love was a funny thing. It came packaged in the strangest ways. I loved my mother, Venita, in one way and I love Shirley aka Moochie in another. Underneath pulling my hair out about Mayhem, I loved my brother. I really loved my newfound sister, Rachel, and was looking forward to meeting my baby brother, Daniel, whom I always loved since I took care of him as a baby. Now that I changed my daughter's diaper, I remember that I changed Diggity's diapers often when he was a baby. I thought having to act as a surrogate mother at the age of eight had turned me against motherhood, but now I saw things differently. It had actually prepared me. I handled my baby with a deftness of an experienced mother.

I had truly loved Romero, and probably always would, but now I had a mother's love for our newborn daughter, Angel.

With the smell of smoke surrounding me, a gunfight with a hunted man raging up the hill from me, I realized something. As fragile, as vulnerable, and as imperfect as we are as human beings, we keep trying to get it right. We keep having children, hoping this time we would do better in the next generation.

Maybe everything happened for a reason. Maybe all the experiences I had gone through, even being born to a Crip mother, was what made me who I was today. I thought about it. What I had gone through had brought me back to God. Now I knew I needed God in my life. And yes, I was bringing Angel into a crazy world, but, as long as there was life, there was hope for a better tomorrow.

 

The End

 

 

This book is dedicated to all the mothers, who are still living, and who, for whatever reasons, were unable to rear their children. If possible, go back and heal the relationships with your children. It is never too late.

Maxine Thompson is an author of novels,
The Ebony Tree, Hostage of Lies, L.A. Blues, L.A. Blues
2, and
L.A. Blues 3
, short story collection,
A Place Called Home
, a contributor to anthologies,
Secret Lovers, All in the Family, Never Knew Love Like This, Proverbs for the People
, and editor/contributor to
Saturday Morning
. She also has authored an e book series,
The Hush Hush Secrets of Writing Fiction that Sells, The Hush Hush Secrets of Making Money as a Writer,
and
The Hush Hush Secrets of Creating a Life You Love, 1
and
2.

She is the host of The Dr. Maxine Thompson Internet show on
www.artistfirst.com
, the owner of Maxine Thompson's Literary Services and Maxine Thompson's Literary Agency.

 

 

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