The Glamorous Life (28 page)

The following weekend she wore it in the visiting room and switched watches with Lynx. She paged him every day, just to tell him “I love you,” or to let him know she had made it home safe from a visit, or just to tell him she was thinking of him.

L
ynx stood outside the prison, holding a paper bag containing mail, the majority of which was the cards, letters, and pictures that Bambi had sent him. He had received mail from other chicks while he was inside, but he threw them away before he even hit the bricks. All the personal belongings that he’d acquired while doing time, he gave to a few of the brothers. He’d figured that they needed it more than he did. Bambi pulled up to the prison in her Jaguar, jumped out of the car, and ran over to him. When she hugged him, her feet totally left the ground. Their passionate kiss nearly drove him insane. He couldn’t wait to get to the hotel so he could make love to her.

She drove him to Norfolk, Virginia, where the halfway house was located. He wasn’t due for another three hours, so she got them a room at the Radisson Hotel, a few blocks away.

They took a shower together, and then they stretched out on the bed. She lay facing him, silent and unmoving. For a minute or so he watched patterns of her silhouette on the ceiling, absorbing the sensation of her presence in the bed next to him. He could feel her exhalations, feathery on his shoulder.

He took a slow breath, let it out gradually. She watched him,
her eyes warm but also nervous. He closed his eyes and reached for her. Her chocolate skin felt impossibly smooth and soft to the touch, and she smelled fresh and lush like a tropical forest of exotic flowers and rich soil. He buried his face in her neck, in her skin, in her hair, tasting sweetness. He felt her arms and legs wrap around him and the warmth of her body all along his. He breathed her scent and stroked the skin of her shoulders and back as she rocked him and pressed herself tighter against him.

He felt his own urgency but was determined to take his time and make this, their first time back together, intense and passionate. He kissed her longingly and with intensity, immersing himself in the sensations of her mouth on his, the strength of her body. He nuzzled her neck and cheek and told her how much he needed her, loved her, and wanted her.

Bambi kissed his ear, then drew back, keeping her legs twined around him as she grabbed his manhood and positioned him to enter her. His size once again astounded her. He paused for a moment, unable to move. Once it was all the way in, she started working the middle. They both wanted to enjoy the moment and draw out their mutual pleasure and express their need for one another. They were anxious, and it seemed to take only minutes before they reached ecstasy together.

In the aftermath of their lovemaking, they lay exhausted in one another’s arms, talking sweet nothings. Bambi told him, “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he assured her.

“I love you more than you could ever know.”

“How much?”

“I can’t even tell you, it’s so much. More than I’ve ever loved anyone before. There ain’t nothing for your love I wouldn’t do.”

“Would you kill for me?” he asked.

“Would I kill for you?” she asked, totally caught off guard by the question he’d sprung upon her.

“Yes, would you?” he asked again.

“I mean if someone was after us and your life depended on that action on my part, yes. Would you kill for me?”

“No doubt. I have before.”

She was speechless. She searched her mind for an explanantion, piecing the parts of the puzzle together that she had no idea were even connected. It was Lynx who’d had Reggie shanked while he was at the city jail.

They lay in each other’s arms meditating on how deep their love for each other went, drifting off into a short but deep blissful sleep until the alarm in Lynx’s watch went off, alerting him that he had thirty minutes before he was due at the halfway house. For a minute he thought about calling the halfway house and telling them he was running late because of traffic, but he decided against that. There was no sense in trying them—not yet anyway. He had to get in there and feel them out.

T
he next few days Bambi and Lynx spent as much time as possible talking to one another over the phone. After two weeks the halfway house finally let him out to look for work. Bambi gave him a job at her company. The job was only a front, but it served the purpose. This allowed them to spend every day together, and for the first week of his “job” she stayed in the Hampton Inn so she could pick him up each morning. He got a cell phone and snuck it into the halfway house so they could talk each night.

“Baby, you know if I hang up on you, it’s only because someone walked in the room,” he told her.

“I know, baby,” she would say.

A
fter a month at the halfway house, Lynx told Bambi, “Look, baby, I need you to take me to get my license, and then after that I need you to put my car in your name, so I can get some tags.”

She did as he asked her to do, but was a little jealous. She wondered for a minute,
Since he doesn’t need me for a ride anymore, is our relationship still going to be as strong? I know he has things he has to get in order, but at the same time will he forget about me? I know I shouldn’t think like this, but how else am I supposed to feel? Once he hooks up with Cook’em-up, where do I stand? After all, Cook’em-up hates me. Cook’em-up, he could have so easily found me and put us in touch. The dude came to a few of my parties, and the times I was making my way over to see him, he would go the other way. I never pressed him, but I should have tracked that nigga down like wild game. I am sure Cook’em-up got bitches lined up for Lynx to holla at.

She was also concerned about him parking his Benz around the corner from the halfway house, even though a lot of the residents did. She didn’t want anything big or small to jeopardize his freedom. She always asked, “Do you know what you are doing?”

“If I didn’t then I wouldn’t be doing it.”

Although she wanted him every second of the day, Bambi knew she had to give him his space.

After four months he was discharged from the halfway house. Bambi gave him a small coming-home party. When it was over,
she handed him an envelope filled with hundred dollar bills, which he wouldn’t accept.

“Look, baby, use this to get on your feet,” she pleaded.

“No, I can’t take money from you.”

“Yes, you can. This is our money, not just mine. We are going to be together until death do us part. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.”

“Well, I gotta get mine first.”

Every time she tried to offer him money, they’d end up having a small argument.

She could tell that Lynx was frustrated because the game seemed to have changed so much in the time he was away. Even dudes whom he’d had to put on their feet were acting jealous-hearted. Cook’em-up was the only dude looking out for Lynx, but Cook’em-up had never been a real hustler. He needed Lynx to lead him.

As much as it hurt her, Bambi could only watch as Lynx tried to come back in the game. She struggled with whether or not to give him Loot’chee’s shipment of narcotics that she had tucked away in storage. At first, when she’d taken it, she’d been all for him having it. But now, because he was such an important part of her life, she didn’t think she could handle the pain and anguish of him being locked up again. At the same time, she knew that Lynx wasn’t happy and felt his frustration. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when a so-called friend of his who had been promising to give him three kilos to get on his feet reneged on him. Three days went by with the dude ducking his calls. Lynx’s attitude was heavy with defeat and frustration.

Lynx tried not to take it out on Bambi, but when a man’s money ain’t right, it’s usually the one closest to him who suffers. Even if it was wrong, she knew she had to help him get
back in the game. Once he got some money, then he could go legit. But if it stayed like this, she didn’t think the relationship could survive.

Bambi took a deep breath, finally deciding to break down and tell him. “Later tonight, I need you to go with me to pick up some boxes I have in storage, okay?”

“A’ight, baby,” he said, never looking up from the television.

That night he rode with her to the storage bin, and she tried to make small talk; but she could feel that he was distracted. When they pulled into the storage place, she said, “Look, I’ve got to share something with you.”

He turned to her, giving her his undivided attention. “Remember when you were in jail and I told you that I figured out that Loot’chee was using me to launder his money? I never told you the whole story. No one else knows it besides Ruby, not even Egypt. That’s how deep it is. But since we are going to be together, I have to tell you.”

She filled him in on everything. She told him how she had found the boxes in the apartment, how she’d had the movers put the stuff on the moving truck for shipping to Richmond with the rest of her belongings, running everything down on how she’d played Loot’chee.

“Damn, baby, you gangsta for real,” he said, impressed.

She gave him the keys to the storage bin and pointed out the boxes that were loaded with cocaine and love boat. The next day he met up with Cook’em-up and told him what was going on. They went to DC and opened up shop. He had never known too much about slinging embalming fluid, but he had heard the DC cats in Atlanta talk about the dippers. They would dip their cigarettes in the embalming fluid and get wasted.

Now the benjamins were rolling in again, and they were rolling in fast.

With the benjamins rolling in so plentiful, all the beggars showed up. First there was his momma, Lolly, up to her same old tricks, and since he was on probation, legally Lynx lived with her—giving her the excuse to keep her hands deep in his pocket.

Bambi couldn’t keep track of the times Lynx had visited his mother’s place to find an eviction notice on the door. Lynx would go into the house and ask his mother as she was cooking chicken and getting ready for a card game, “Ma, didn’t I give you the money to pay the rent the past three months?”

“Uuum, I ain’t wanna tell you, but somebody stole it out my housecoat,” she’d lie. Or, “I did pay it, but they making me pay a large deposit since I had to add you to the lease. I didn’t want to say nothing to yo tight ass because I didn’t feel like hearing yo mouth.”

Lynx knew his mother probably had gambled or showboated with the money, so as always he bailed her out from her troubles. Bambi would never understand why Lynx always allowed his mother to play him like that. What hold did she have over him? But she knew better than to ask or interfere with the relationship between son and mother in any way. There was no way to win in that phase of the game called life.

Then there was the girl Lisa from the visiting room, who’d done part of his bid with him. Now that Lynx was out, she felt like Lynx owed her something since she’d run up and down the road to see him. She would chase behind Lynx begging for some dick, knowing good and well Lynx wasn’t thinking about her. He knew that was one coochie he could not get anywhere close to. She was too emotional, and with those feelings, at any moment she could step out of line. He would give her money from time to time if she was in a bind, feeling it was the least he could do whenever she rolled up on him, standing with one hand on her hip and the other hand out.