Dirty Old Men [And Other Stories] (Zane Presents) (28 page)

“So, why
did
you do it then?” the detective pressed him. “And it’s
detective,
not officer.”

Henry looked down and shook his head, feeling ashamed. “I’m sorry, Detective,” he mumbled. “But I…I was just
weak…
And I tried my
best
not to go. Lord
knows,
I did. I was making tired excuses and everything. And then I show up, and this girl is high and horny, man, and she’s
telling
me this.”

The detective shook his own head. He was embarrassed to even hear more more of it. “But even after all of that, you continued to see her, didn’t you? And you
still
didn’t ask how old she was?”

Henry could feel the judgment coming. The detective was beginning to pour the guilt on him. He whined, “Because she told me she was
nineteen.
” Tears began to swell up in the man’s eyes. He knew he was wrong, but it was too late to change anything.

“So, what do you want me to do now?” the detective asked him. “I have to take you down to the station and book you.”

Henry’s eyes grew large again. He screamed, “She
lied
to me, man, and you
know
she lied!” Fresh tears rolled out of the old man’s eyes and down his plump face. He mumbled, “I thought you said you understood our culture.”

He felt terrified and ashamed. What would his estranged wife and children think of him now?

“Yeah, I do understand it, Henry, but that don’t make it
right.
You can’t walk around giving out your phone number to young girls like this. And if I let you get away with it this time, you gon’ go right back out there and do it again, ain’t you?”

“No, man,
never!
” Henry stated. “I’ve
learned
my lesson.”

The detective looked him over. “You’ve learned your
lesson?
Nothing has even happened to you yet. So you’re gonna go out here and get on somebody else’s daughter. And then you gon’ make me look like a
fool!
”

Henry shook his head as tears continued to run down his tortured face.
He looked straight into the detective’s stern brown eyes and decreed, “God be my
witness,
I will
never
get myself involved in anything like this again.
Never!
”

“You know they say that you should never say never,” the detective commented.

“Well, I’m saying it because I
mean it,
” Henry cried.

The detective nodded, thinking everything over.

“So, how long have you been involved with her?”

“Just over a month now,” Henry admitted.

“And how many times have you been with her?”

Henry paused to make sure the detective was asking him what he
thought
he was asking him. He whimpered, “Do I need a lawyer before I answer something like that?”

“You can call one, after I take you down and book you at the station. Maybe your wife can call up a good trial lawyer for you.”

Henry heard that and panicked all over again. He cried, “What do you want me to do?” His voice was cracking.

“I want you to tell me everything so I can help you,” the detective answered. “Now if you wanna do this the
hard way,
I can go ahead and book you down at the station, and then let you call whomever you wanna call. But if you do it
my
way, I can get down to the bottom of this without the case ever making it to a courtroom.”

Henry didn’t believe him, but what choice did he have? He didn’t want his family, friends, or coworkers to know what he had gotten himself into— especially after work had just begun to look up for him. So he had to roll the dice and pray for a lucky seven.

“I’ve been with her about…five or six times now,” he confessed.

“Is that it?” the detective questioned. “You sure it wasn’t more than that, in over a month. What if I asked
her
the same question?”

“She could lie to you again,” Henry answered.

“Well, that sounds like you’re in a bad situation then. Who is the jury gonna believe: an older man separated from his wife, or a sixteen-year-old girl who still lives with her mother and family?”

Henry sunk his head into his chest and cried even louder. “I’m telling you
what you’re asking me. I don’t know what else to say. I made a stupid decision.”

“So, exactly what did you talk about when she called you? Because you couldn’t have asked her much about who she was or what she did for a living. You would have found out fairly easily that she was underaged.”

Henry kept his head burrowed into his chest.

“I talked about a lot of things that I shouldn’t have been talking about.”

“Oh yeah, like what? Let me hear some of it.”

Henry thought about acquiring a lawyer again, but he feared the detective threatening to book him down at the station. “We talked a lot about sex. And she wanted to…experience some things,” he added after a pause.

“Is that right? And you told her you would be the one to help her experience it?”

Henry answered by nodding his head into his chest.

The detective shook his head. “Well, that’s
pitiful.
How do you think
your
daughter would respond to hearing that you did something like that?”

Henry didn’t want to imagine it. He figured he had suffered enough already. He had never been handcuffed inside of a police car in his life. And the only thing he knew about the station was what he had seen on television shows or in movies. He barely even read the crime section in his own newspaper.

Finally, the detective asked him, “Henry, you’re not gonna skip town on me, or commit suicide, if I let you go, are you? I consider myself a pretty good judge of character.”

Henry couldn’t answer him right away. He had to think about it. Then he slowly shook his head. He told himself to have a little faith. He had told the detective the truth, and that’s all that he had to offer.

“All right, so…I’m gonna stop by to pay a visit to LaTasha Springfield and her family, and I’m gonna hear her side of the story. And if I can straighten it all out without it making it into the courtroom, then you can come out of this thing and count your blessings.”

Henry squeezed his eyes tightly again and mumbled, “Thank you!”

“Now I can’t make you any promises,” the detective added. “But one thing I
can
promise you is this; from here on out, any false moves on your part may
definitely
land you in prison. And that includes
speaking
to LaTasha about
any
of this or seeing her ever again.
Or
you trying to skip out of town on me. So what I would advise you to do, is avoid any further contact with her, go back to work and your regular routine, and wait for me to contact you with a follow-up.”

He continued, “And you can contact a lawyer, if you want, but I wouldn’t advise you to find one with a lawyer’s ego. He may make the situation worse for you than what it already is. You know, sometimes these lawyers like to make themselves a big deal by getting all kinds of publicity. And I wouldn’t advise you to play that game. You and I both know that what’s
wrong
is
wrong.
But I
do
believe in an honest man getting a second chance to prove himself in life. So let me see what I can do for you.”

Henry heard him out and nodded his heavy head into his chest once more. He mumbled, “Thank you.”

The detective nodded back. “All right. Well, I’ma let you go now. But you remember everything I told you.”

When Henry arrived at home to his small, studio apartment, he felt sweaty and exhausted, as if he had just jumped off of a treadmill at the gym. He fell back across his bed and didn’t want to budge. The close call had taken everything out of him. And it wasn’t over yet.

“I’ve really done it to myself now,” he cried up to the ceiling. Nevertheless, he couldn’t deny that Tasha’s young, wet pussy had been incredible. That was the worst part of his ordeal. He had tasted the heavenly juices of youth.

“Fuck!” he enraged. As he lay in bed, he beat his balled fists at his sides. But his frustrations wouldn’t change a damn thing. He was now forced to wait it out and continue to pray. He even thought of leaving town, or dying, as the detective had warned him not to do. But there were so many other places to live out there, and so many towns for him to start a new life. Or, if he was to be imprisoned because of his grave mistake, then maybe he would be better off if he killed himself before the detective and the police came back to get him.

At least then I wouldn’t have to live with the shame of what I’ve done,
he pondered.
But then…what would happen to me once I’ve reached the gates of heaven?

He felt that his life was no longer in his hands. So he quietly began to weep, with tears rolling down the sides of his face and landing on his bed sheets.

If I could just have a second chance,
he mused.

“Everyone deserves at least
one
second chance.”

After countless minutes had turned into hours, Henry still couldn’t find the energy to move. He even ignored his cell phone on the first two rings. But on the third ring, he read the number to see who was calling him.

However, the call was restricted, and he definitely wasn’t up to answering any foreign phone calls that evening.
What if it is Tasha calling to get him into more trouble?
He ignored it.

But once the third call was followed by a fourth, and from a restricted number again, Henry waited for the call to end before he checked his messages.

He listened to the usual calls from coworkers, family and friends, before he reached the last two messages that were left on his cell phone that evening.

“Hey, Henry, it’s Tasha. I know you probably don’t want to speak to me anymore, but I wanted to tell you that it was my friend who told her mom, and then
her
mom called
my
mom. And before I could even say anything about it, my mom called the police station and made a fucking complaint. So I wanted you to know that it wasn’t me. Okay?”

Henry then listened to her second message.

“
Please
don’t be mad at me, man. It wasn’t my
fault.
And I would never tell my business like that. I mean, I…”

Henry shook his head and erased the message without listening to the rest of it. He didn’t want to hear it.

“Is this girl
crazy?
She makes it sound like this is a slap-on-the-wrist thing. But this detective is ready to lock my ass
up!
”

Furthermore, the young girl was not apologizing for lying to him about her age; she was only apologizing for being dimed out.

And if she didn’t tell her business like that, then how would her girlfriend even know who the hell I was?
Henry reasoned.
I knew that was a mistake the first time she called me from that girl’s phone to pick her up that night.

All her pleading phone calls only made him angrier.

“That damn girl has
no
fucking idea what she got me into!” he stood from
his bed and shouted. “This ain’t no got’ damned
game!
This is my
life
we’re talking about!”

Nevertheless, Tasha’s desperate phone calls had given him new faith, so he vowed to fight the charges. He wasn’t going to jail for a sixteen-year-old girl! Instead, he would force her to tell the judge and jury that she had
lied
to him. Plain and simple. And if his family, employers, and the citizens of Richmond, Virginia, would castigate him for his poor judgment, then he would up and leave the city for a new place to live.

Henry was determined to keep his same reserve at work the next morning. He performed his usual routines and was fortified in his faith that he would be proven innocent on the grounds of ignorance of her real age. But he could no longer fight the fact that he had an active sex drive. A sex drive was normal. And if he needed to finally divorce his wife and move on to a new relationship with a capable and loving woman, then so be it.

However, Henry was also prepared for any visitor from the police station to pop in on him at work. He wouldn’t be blindsided by it again, and he would not break down and cry anymore. He was ready for it now. He even collected the names and phone numbers of three qualified lawyers in his wallet to call up and defend him whenever needed. But after the first day at work, no one came to get him.