Blackout: Stand Your Ground (8 page)

            “
Jawan
, I know all about it, but unfortunately we don’t have time to worry about it.”

            “What you mean you know about it? You let him take our shit and you wasn’t gonna do or say anything about it? You know this fool?”

            “What the hell we gonna do with a damn flat screen TV if we’re locked up? And no I don’t know him!
Jawan
, you’re not thinking clearly! Can we please get out of here?”

            Just then
Meesie
realized what was going on. She brought her hand up to her mouth and burst out crying. She could feel it deep down in her soul and felt betrayed.
Jawan
was thinking very clearly. He was trying to leave her. That was the only rational reason he would be holding a gun to someone’s head in a now huge crowd, fussing about a damn stolen TV that if they stood there a minute longer, they wouldn’t be able to use no way.

            “
Meesie
—
Meesie
, what’s wrong?”
Jawan
turned his attention toward
Meesie
and noticed the crowd of people that were watching. He saw a few people on their cell phones, some talking, and others recording the scene. “I’m sorry
Meesie
. I snapped. I just seen him coming out the house and you just came out of the house and damn I started thinking about what my uncle said and you having a secret that I just-- I didn’t know what to think. I’m sorry. Stop crying baby!”

            “The secret was your uncle is a damn pervert! It shouldn’t have been a secret being he look like one, but that was the damn secret!” she asked drying her face with her shirt.

           
Meesie
was appalled that
Jawan
had done all of this because of what his uncle had said. In the middle of them running for their lives he had the nerve to be jealous. She didn’t have time to be thinking about a man and wondered how he even had time to be thinking that she was.

           
WHOOP! WHOOP!

           
“Clear the way people! Clear the way!”
the officer said over the loud speaker.

            ”Oh shit,
Meesie
,”
Jawan
said and slowly slid the gun inside of his pants. This was it. This was the end and
Jawan
didn’t know what to do. He was a black man with a gun. They were gonna kill him, he just knew it. “
Meesie
, I love you baby.”

            “
Jawan
, let’s go!”
Meesie
grabbed his hand and pulled him.

            The two of them took off running, breaking through the crowd with hopes of getting away. They didn’t know where they would run or even how far they would get being they were on foot.

            “
Meesie
, where are we gonna go? We have nowhere to go! Let’s just stop. I don’t want us to get into any more trouble!”
Jawan
yelled, out of breath.

            “
Jawan
, we can’t just give up! Not like this!”
Meesie
looked over her shoulder and could see the police car fighting its way through the crowd of onlookers. She pulled
Jawan’s
hand and they cut through a couple of houses that led them to the next street. “
Jawan
, why are you trying to leave me? What am I gonna do without you?”

           
Meesie
stopped running and placed both hands on her knees as she fought to catch her breath. She was so sick of
Jawan
doing shit and then turning around and saying let’s give up. She wanted him to stop doing the crazy shit of course, but she didn’t want him to go handing himself over to the police. For some reason she actually thought that they could run away to some foreign island, raise their child, and forget any of this ever happened.

            “I told my daddy I would make this right! I gotta make it right
Meesie
. We can’t live on the run. I can’t have you looking over your shoulder every day all the damn time. That’s not the
kinda
life I imagined for you or my first child,”
Jawan
said and suddenly he had an idea. “Come on
Meesie
!”

           
Jawan
took off running down the sidewalk going at a very rapid pace. He remembered that he’d parked his car two blocks in the other direction and walked to his house just in case the police were there, he didn’t want them to spot his car.

           
Meesie
followed behind
Jawan
trying to figure out what he was doing. She was sad because she knew that the end road wasn’t a good one. She didn’t want her baby growing up in the system being raised by people that only wanted the baby because of a check. When she first found out that she was pregnant, she wished for a little girl. All she could think about was combing her hair with pretty pink barrettes and dressing her in pretty dresses and sandals. She hoped that by then her and
Jawan
would have saved up enough money to get a bigger place and shortly after they would be married and living happily ever after. None of this had been in her dreams. This was a nightmare and she wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, not even her worse enemy.

            “Come on
Meesie
!”
Jawan
yelled at her. She was slow to follow.
Maybe he is right. Maybe we should just give up. At least we can turn ourselves in and still be alive to save our good name. Lord knows I don’t want our child to think we just this black trash the media will sadly portray us as if they end up killing us both. At least if we’re alive and our child comes looking for us, we can tell her who we really are. The truth about us.
Meesie
thought as she placed her hand over her stomach and stopped running again.

She had to think about her child now and even though she wanted to make it to that island and live a happily ever life with just the three of them, she knew it wasn’t likely. Stuff like that only happened in movies.

Jawan
had been running so fast that he hadn’t realized that
Meesie
was no longer behind him. He stopped in between one of the houses and peeked around the corner. Looking down the street where he once lived, he noticed that there were more police cars and an even bigger crowd. All he had to do was get to his car that was parked a couple of blocks over and he and
Meesie
could get out of there. He wanted to turn his self in and for this to all be over with no matter what
Meesie
said, but seeing her stand up for him earlier at his uncle’s house, and then seeing her break down crying moments ago tugged at his heart.

He knew what the right thing to do was, but he didn’t want the right thing to be the one thing that would break
Meesie’s
heart. He figured if maybe he could just get them somewhere safe, get some money together, then he can take them to another state. It would be nice if he could at least be around to see his first child being born, and after that he could hire a lawyer and do things the right way. If
Meesie
had time to process the fact that he was going to jail, then she could better accept it.

“
Meesie
look I got this plan….“
Jawan
turned around and didn’t see her. “...
Meesie
!
Meesie
!”

Jawan
panicked and felt himself about to blackout.

“Shit, I still didn’t take my—“
Jawan
said before collapsing
to the ground. 

Meesie
sat there in tears as she watched her husband writhe and shake on the ground from yet another seizure. All of the emotional stress had been taking a toll on her body, and she felt as if she would pass out also. She took a deep breath and prepared for the police to come and arrest her. She hated that the last memory that
Jawan
would have of the free world would be him running from the police without her, and she desperately wished that she could change it. She wanted his last memory to be of her being right by his side like she’d always been.

           
She couldn’t stand it anymore. She got up off of the ground and started running over towards
Jawan
. If the worse was going to happen, then she wanted to be in his presence or a part of it when the worse happened; whether that meant prison or death.

           
She ran and laid down next to her fiancé. She wrapped her arms around him and let her tears flow. From the depths of her soul she loved that man, and there was nothing in the world that could change that. She looked to see how close the police were, but to her surprise; the crowd had formed a human blockade, and wouldn’t allow the officers to get through.

           
She heard one officer screaming at the crowd, and another one screaming at his partner. “Clear the way or I’m taking everyone to jail
damnit
! Move out of the way!”

           
“Fuck them, let them stand there! They’re going to pay for this shit severely in a minute. As soon as I get the okay from headquarters, we’re going to get through this crowd even if we have to use violent force! They’re interfering with the apprehension of some serial killers!”

           
A black man from the crowd spoke up on hearing
violent force
come out of the officer’s mouth. “Nah honky. I swear to God you won’t be using no violent force on this here crowd. We got a right to stand wherever the fuck we
wanna
stand. I’m standing my ground you fuckin pig!”

           
The officer ran around to where the man was standing, but stopped in his tracks. He noticed the gang symbols tatted on his arm and neck, and saw that the same gang signs were tatted on almost everybody in the crowd. Slowly he backed away so that he could have a conversation with his partner. He wouldn’t even be able to pull out his service weapon around a crowd like that. Of all the cop killings in Florida, he knew that that particular gang was responsible for the bulk of them. They didn’t mind killing cops individually, so he could only imagine what a crowd of them would do.

           
He took a deep, nervous breath and walked back towards his patrol car silently.

           
***

           
“I’m so sorry I let you down
Jawan
! I’m so sorry baby! I need you and I’ll always need you baby! I love you and I’ll never love anyone else the way I love you baby! Damn, I’m so sorry!”
Meesie
screamed as she tried to make sure that he was still getting proper air circulation.

           
“If I could get you to wake up, I promise you we would run until they catch us baby. I would never even
think
of giving up if I could have you by my side one more time. I guess this is how prison will feel… Because you’ll be right there in my life just like you are now and I’ll still be unable to communicate with you. Prison or death will feel like a perpetual seizure.”
Meesie
cried.

           
“Hey, y’all need help?”

           
Meesie
looked up and saw the partner of the robber that she had killed getting out of his truck.

           
“Get the fuck away from us! Get the fuck away you thieving black bastard!”
Meesie
screamed.

           
“No, no, no. You’ve pegged me all wrong. We really didn’t mean any harm by it. We were just being young and dumb, and we damn sure didn’t know you were going to be there at the house. We got scared. And you killed my best friend.” He said solemnly. As soon as
Meesie
and
Jawan
had ran off, he had jumped in his truck and drove off the block as quickly as he could before the police could make it through the crowd.

Being that he was on parole with a car full of stolen merchandise there was no way he was sticking around to answer any questions. As he had been driving away, he felt the need to go back and help
Meesie
and
Jawan
. After all, if he hadn’t broke into their home, they wouldn’t be in this mess.