Wifey 4 Life (16 page)

Fro shrugged as if to say he didn’t know anything. Basically,
Fro wanted me to do all the explaining.

Walt asked Fro, “Where’d you pick her up?”

“I was out Young’s Park sitting in my homeboy’s truck when I
saw her running down Virginia Beach toward Monticello Avenue with her wrists tied
up and duct tape covering her mouth. I asked her what was up and if she needed some
help. She said yeah, so I untied her wrists and ripped off the fucking tape.”

“What made you bring her here?”

“I told him I needed a burner.”

Walt looked back at Fro. “You told her I had burners and you
didn’t even know her?”

“Nah, Walt, you know I don’t carry it like that. I just told
her that I could get her one, and when we pulled up to your crib, that’s when she
told me she knew you.”

“Yeah, he’s not lying. When we pulled onto Reservoir, I automatically
knew he was coming to see you.”

Walt asked me again how I got banged up. And he wanted to know
who did it. I took a deep breath and told him everything I’d told Fro. I could tell
Walt had trouble believing what I was saying. He looked back at Fro at least four
times while I was talking.

When I was done speaking, Walt looked at Fro again and said,
“I don’t know why you did it, but you did the right thing by bringing her here to
me.”

Fro nodded.

“You know she’s like a daughter to me, right?”

“She told me.”

Walt started rubbing my back in a circular motion. “I used to
mess with her mama back in the day. Unfortunately, it didn’t last, so she was taken
away from me after her mother moved out.” He grabbed me and pulled me into his arms,
embracing me like he didn’t want to let me go.

“That’s too bad,” Fro said.

Walt asked Fro to step outside, so he could talk to him. After
they walked out the back door, I dried the tears from my eyes and began to think
about how I was going to take revenge on the motherfuckers who’d tortured me. I
had so much anger and bitterness in my heart, I knew I could destroy anything. I
didn’t have a plan at all, but I decided I would figure that out as soon as I got
my hands on a burner.

W
alt stayed outside with Fro for about five minutes, and when
he came back into the house, Fro was nowhere in sight. Walt told me he’d sent him
on his way.

“But I wanted him and his friend to take me to my rental car,”
I said.

“He already told me. Don’t worry about it. I’m gonna take care
of everything.”

I stood. “Can I use your bathroom? I need to wash off this blood
on my face and get myself together.”

“Yeah, sure. It’s right down that hallway to your right. My facecloths
are in the hall closet right across from the bathroom. You can take a shower if
you want.”

After he pointed me in the direction of the bathroom, I didn’t
hesitate to get in there. Before I went inside the bathroom, I grabbed a towel and
facecloth from the hall closet.

When Walt noticed I was getting ready to take a shower, he said,
“If you want to change into something more comfortable, I can lend you a T-shirt
and a pair of my shorts.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” I told him after I realized he wasn’t that
much bigger than me. I wouldn’t have a pair of panties to put on, but that didn’t
matter. I felt really dirty, and all I wanted to do was wash the icky feeling off
me.

Once I was undressed, I turned on the shower and slid inside.
The water was perfect. I turned my back against the stream, and the pressure of
the water massaged my back muscles, relieving some of my tension. Although I tried
to enjoy my shower, my mind kept flashing back to what I had gone through earlier
that day. How stupid was I to fall for all that bullshit? I couldn’t believe that
I’d allowed myself to get caught up like that. I was from the streets, so I knew
the tricks of the trade. I knew how to read certain niggas when they looked funny,
but I guess, since I’d been away, I’d lost my touch.

Even though I had been violated and beat up, I still had some
willpower left. I badly wanted revenge on Tony, my uncle, Dré, and Kasey. I could
taste it. But I wasn’t naïve. I knew I wouldn’t be able to conquer that mission
alone.

I probably stayed in the shower for about twenty minutes, which
was enough time for me to collect my thoughts. When I stepped out of the bathroom,
Walt was in his bedroom shuffling things around. It sounded like he was rearranging
some large objects. I stood in the hallway with the towel wrapped around me and
knocked on his bedroom door.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said.

“I just need you to hand me those clothes you said you had for
me.”

“I put ’em on the bed in the other bedroom.”

“OK, thanks,” I said and walked away.

I went into the other bedroom and got dressed. The T-shirt was
a little too big, and so were the shorts, but I needed something to cover my body,
so I made do. After I slipped back on my ballet flats, I balled up the clothes I
had on earlier and placed them on the edge of the bed. If there was a garbage can
somewhere nearby, I would’ve thrown them out. I didn’t need anything around me that
reminded me what I’d gone through today, especially since I knew that I wasn’t ever
going to wear those clothes again.

When I came out of the bedroom, Walt was sitting in the living
room talking on his cell phone. As soon as I approached him, he cut his conversation
short and ended the call. He tapped a spot beside him on the sofa and told me to
sit there, so I did.

“I just got off the phone with a friend of mine, and he agreed
to help me with your problem.”

I didn’t respond. I just looked at him really strangely. I immediately
began to wonder what type of plan they had come up with. When dealing with men like
Walt, who liked to provide as little information as possible, you had to follow
blindly. He’d been like that for years, and I didn’t think he was going to change
now.

“Do you need some ice for your mouth?” he asked me after focusing
on the cheek and mouth areas of my face.

“No, I’m fine.”

“You sure? Because that looks really bad.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I laid my mouth in the palm of my right hand
to cover it.

“You know, you look just like your mother.”

I gave him a nonchalant expression and shrugged. I wasn’t in
the mood to be reminded about how much I resembled my mother. I had just been sexually
assaulted and tortured, so my mind was somewhere else.

“You know, I still think about her,” he said.

“I’m sure you do.”

Walt placed his hand on my right knee. “If me and your mama were
still together, you would’ve had a different life, and she’d probably still be alive
today.”

“There’s a strong possibility that you could be right.”

“Damn! If I could only turn back the hands of time.”

“You can’t, so don’t even dwell on it.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled.

“I can’t believe your uncle did some shit like that to you,”
he said, again. “I know your mother is turning over in her fucking grave right now.”

I looked back at Walt. “I know she is too.”

“Well, he’s got to be dealt with. I can’t sit here and know what
he did to you and not do anything to him.”

“I want a piece of his ass too.” I knew Walt saw the vengeance
in my eyes. I literally wanted to get a gun from him and go on a shooting rampage.

“Do you think he’s at home?” Walt asked me. “I’m not sure. What
time is it?”

Walt looked down at his wristwatch. “Ten thirty.”

“I’ve never known him to be out this late, but a lot about him
has changed, so I can’t call it.”

“He’s gonna be very shocked when he sees me coming for his ass.”
Walt smiled. “You know, he and I don’t see eye to eye.”

“Nah, I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, him and your grandmother caused me and your mama to break
up.”

“Really? I never knew that.”

“Yeah, they stayed in our business. And the day your mama moved
out of my house, me and your uncle almost got into a fistfight.”

“Are you serious?”

“Hell, yeah! He had just come home from the military, and he
and your grandmother came to my house talking shit, telling your mama she didn’t
need to be with me, and that if she didn’t leave with them, they were going to take
you from her.”

Shocked, I looked at Walt and said, “My grandmother threatened
to take me away from my mama?”

“Yep, she sure did.”

“Why? I mean, what was my mama doing so bad that my grandma would
threaten to take me away from her like that?”

“They didn’t like me, baby girl. They thought I was a bad influence
because I was in the streets hustling, and they didn’t want y’all around it.”

“Well,
if you look at it from their perspective, you’d probably feel the same way.”

“Listen, baby girl, I’m not a petty-ass nigga. If the shoe was
on the other foot, I would’ve probably acted the same way. But the part I didn’t
like was when your uncle pulled a gun on me and stuck it in my face. I swear, if
your mama hadn’t defused the situation, I would have run in my house, grabbed my
pistol, and blew his motherfucking head off his shoulders.”

“Wow! It got that bad?”

“Hell, yeah! The police came and everything.”

“Wait a minute. Where was I? Because I don’t remember any of
that happening.”

“You were in school.”

“You know what . . . I questioned my mama over a dozen times
about why we were moving back to my grandmama’s house, but all she did was brush
me off. As time passed, I just stopped asking her, because she never gave me a straight
answer. And when I started seeing you again after I got married, knowing what really
happened back then between y’all wasn’t a top priority anymore, so I left it alone.”

“Well, I didn’t want to leave it alone. I wanted to tear some
shit up. I especially wanted to kill Lanier because of how he disrespected me.
I have never allowed a man to stick a pistol to my head and then walk around and
talk about it. That’s a no-no in my world.”

“My husband Ricky felt the exact same way. He used to always
tell the flunkies who worked for him that if they ever pulled out a gun on somebody,
they’d better use it, or they’d be the ones on the chopping block.”

“Baby girl, that’s the number one cardinal rule for the streets,
so your uncle was one lucky motherfucker!”

“Well, you know what?”

“What?”

“His luck just ran out, because I’m getting ready to serve his
ass to you on a silver platter.”

Before Walt could respond to my comment, his cell phone rang.
He looked at the caller ID screen then answered, “What’s up, Griff ?”

I couldn’t hear what the caller was saying, but whatever it was,
it was something Walt wanted to hear.

“OK, that’s what I’m talking about, brother.” Walt smiled. “Come
on through. I’ll be waiting for you.” He then disconnected the call.

“You ready to take a ride?” he asked me.

“I guess so,” I responded, not knowing what was about to transpire.
I did know that Walt was about to create a lot of bloodshed, and this time it wasn’t
going to be my blood.

While we waited for Griff to arrive, Walt went into the kitchen
and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. “Want something to drink?”

“You got bottled water?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll take one of those then.”

Five seconds later Walt walked back into the living room with
his beer in one hand and my bottled water in the other. He handed me the water and
sat back down on the sofa next to me.

After he sipped and swallowed some of his beer, he looked at
me and asked, “How long has it been?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Since I seen you.”

I thought for a second. “It’s been a few years now.”

Walt fell silent and thought for a second.

“Yeah, you’re right, because the last time we talked was when
I gave you and Ricky those tickets to the Redskins game.”

I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Wow! That was at least two years
ago.” He nodded too. “Yep.” He took another sip of his beer.

After he swallowed the beer, he switched the subject on me. I
knew it was coming. I just didn’t know when. And what was even crazier about it
was, I wasn’t prepared for it. Walt was a very straightforward guy and held back
no punches, which was why he would forever be respected.

“Tell me what went down with that federal case you and Ricky
was involved in.”

“What do you want to know?” I asked, trying to buy some time.
I figured he’d heard a lot of different stories on the streets, a lot of which,
I was sure, were blown out of proportion.

“Just tell me everything.”

Knowing that he wanted me to tell him everything almost drove
me to throw up all over his carpet. I didn’t want him to label me a snitch. And
I definitely didn’t want him to throw me out of his house and renege on helping
me with my problem. I needed him. He was the only person left in my life that I
could trust. Too bad I hadn’t thought about him before now. I guess when you stay
out of touch with people for long periods of time, you tend to forget about them.

I had to give God the credit for this one. He knew I needed help,
so He used a total stranger like Fro to bring me to Walt. Funny how life worked.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. I opened my mouth, but nothing
came out. Walt gave me his full, undivided attention, and there was no other way
around it. I had to come clean with him, so I did. Well, I almost did.

He blurted out, “Just tell me what they said about you on the
streets wasn’t true.”

“What did you hear?” I thought turning the question back on him
would take me off the hot seat and relieve some of the pressure for a moment.

But Walt didn’t fall for my tactics. “You know I don’t get into
all of that,” he said. “I never repeat shit I hear. That’s why I go to the source.
Now tell me what happened,” he said, looking me straight in the eyes.