Entangled (27 page)

At 11:00 P.M. they rose and showered together like they had done so many times before. The mood was pleasant. They played with each other the way they used to. He sprayed her with cold water and she squirted shampoo in his eyes.
“Damn it, Dream. My eyes are burning.”
She laughed. “Come here, let me kiss them.”
“Get away from me, crazy ass girl.” He pushed her away and

They left the hotel at 11:35. On the way to the Waffle House, Jamal called Thomas Henry to make sure he would be there. When they pulled up, they heard cars screeching to a halt. Several vehicles had formed a barricade. They were surrounded by FBI, DEA agents, and local policemen. “Put your goddamned hands up!” a burly DEA agent yelled.

Jamal knew everything he had worked so hard to build was about to end. The passenger door opened and a huge DEA agent yanked Dream from the car.

Jamal looked behind him. There was nowhere to run. There were at least fifteen officers. He wondered where they had come from. It seemed as though they were rising from the ground. He grabbed his gun from underneath the seat. Jamal fired four shots through the windshield, killing only one officer. He suddenly became overwhelmed by the return fire. The shots flew from all angles, striking his head and chest, taking his life. Jamal’s body lay slouched in the seat as his eyes protruded.

The ambulance arrived. The firemen arrived. Media ran rampantly. The police taped off the scene. Dream had been struggling to answer questions from Agent Pratt, but when she saw the coroner bring out a body bag, reality hit her. Jamal was gone forever. “They didn’t have to kill him,” she moaned. “Please don’t go away from me, Jamal. Please don’t go.” She ran up to the coroner’s van but was ordered to step away as Jamal’s body was loaded and the door was closed. When the coroner drove away, she dropped to her knees and cried.

Angelo and his two goons had been apprehended at his hotel room on weapons charges. Since Angelo was a convicted felon, it was simple for the grand jury to return an indictment on him. His plea agreement was fifteen years, which was like a life sentence to him because of his age. He had pled guilty and was shipped to a federal prison in southern California.

Jeremiah was subsequently indicted for obstruction of justice and was fired. Most of the cases he had been involved in had a good chance of being overturned. The U.S. Attorney’s office was not too happy about that. David Ricardo would later recommend that Jeremiah be sent to a federal prison and placed in the regular inmate population where he knew he would be slapped around once word got out that he was a former federal agent.

Dream pulled to the side of the road and sat with her head resting on the steering wheel. She felt nauseous and felt as if there was a metal wrench churning inside her stomach. It had been two hours since she’d left the doctor’s office, and she still had not made it home. She didn’t want to go home; she wanted to end her life. She knew something was wrong after she’d received a call from Doctor Sinclair saying it was very necessary that she saw him immediately. Two weeks prior to the phone call, she had taken her annual physical required by the school district.

She had lost the desire to live the minute Doctor Sinclair told her she was HIV positive. That would be the last thing she would remember. He had tried to tell her everything was going to be all right and that life would be okay for her if she received the proper treatment. He had even told her about support groups that would make her HIV-induced world easier, but before he could say anything, Dream stormed out of the room crying. Her life had been ruined because of Jamal. She figured it had to be him, because he was the only one she’d had unprotected sex with. Did he even know he was HIV positive? How did he get it? Maybe he had been a closet homosexual, or maybe . . . he got it from the stripper. “Damnit,” she said as she slammed her fist against the dashboard. “Why in the hell did I get involved with a character like him?” she asked herself. School had just started three weeks before, and things were starting to look up for her again. She was teaching American history, and had her own homeroom class. She absolutely loved her kids. She had started seeing DeVon again, and they were actually talking about marriage and starting a family one day.

After Jamal had been killed, she thought for certain she would pick up and move on with her life. She had actually felt blessed to be alive. She knew that she could have very easily ended up in a prison like Dawg, or could have been killed like Jamal. Now, after receiving the news from Dr. Sinclair, she didn’t feel she was fortunate after all. In her mind, Jamal was the lucky one. His life was over. He had not suffered, nor did he have to live with the stigma of being HIV positive. How would she tell her parents? How would she tell DeVon? She was glad she had not had unprotected sex with him.

Dream opened the glove compartment and got the sleeping pills—she swallowed seventeen of them and started crying again. Fifteen minutes later she was unconscious.

An hour later, a state trooper found her slouched behind the steering wheel of her car and called the ambulance. She was then rushed to the emergency room, where her stomach was pumped.

David and Janice Nelson entered Dream’s hospital room with flowers and balloons in hand. Dream sat up on the bed and made eye contact with her parents. She didn’t know what to say or do. She didn’t know how much they knew. Her father approached the bed and gave her a hug. “Baby, it’s going to be okay, your mother and I will be here for you.”

Dream knew immediately that they knew about her being HIV positive. Dr. Sinclair must have told them. Suddenly the tears came. “D-daddy, how did you find out?” she struggled to say.

“After we received the call from the hospital, saying you had overdosed, I called Doctor Sinclair and I asked him if he knew why you would try to take your life; I knew you had been to his office yesterday. He was kind of hesitant to answer my question. He told me he had given you some bad news that he couldn’t share with me. So I drove over to his office this morning and demanded he tell me. Reluctantly he did.”

“Baby, we will always love you,” Janice said as she leaned forward and kissed Dream.
Someone tapped on the door. Keisha and Dream’s student, Jessica Irving, appeared. They rushed to Dream’s bedside and hugged her.
Dream smiled when she saw Keisha. She knew that no matter what, Keisha would always be her friend. Dream knew she had made some mistakes, and seeing Jessica made Dream realize that though her life would no longer be the same. There were still many reasons to live. She had a purpose that was far greater than teaching history. She would now teach her children life skills. These were the same skills she and Jamal had lacked. She had learned from her experience, and she felt she needed to pass her lessons along. She wasn’t going to give up. She would live every day to the fullest, thankful for her friends and family, and enjoy what the Lord had given her. At that moment she realized she was loved, and DeVon or any other man no longer mattered. She wasn’t worried about whether or not DeVon would accept her and her condition. She closed her eyes briefly and thanked God.

Mark was slouched in the seat of a U-Haul truck with a USA Today covering his face. From afar, he observed the huge stucco mansion of his latest subject, Tommy Dupree, a twenty-six-yearold black man, short and round, who loved cars. A new Lincoln Navigator and a Lexus LS 400 were in the driveway.
An hour later Tommy came out. He was wearing a green-andwhite sweat suit. He was draped in diamond jewelry, and two women clung to his stubby arms. Placing his newspaper on his lap, Mark fired up the ignition as he wondered where his new investigation might take him. He wondered how Tommy’s story would unfold.

Hopefully you enjoyed this work of fiction. The story you have just read was not written to condone or condemn anybody’s behavior and none of the characters in the book are good or bad but simply living their lives or playing the hands that they were dealt. I’m not a criminologist or psychologist but an observant artist trying to paint an unbiased picture. If you learned something from the story fine if you didn’t hopefully you was thoroughly entertained. Post all your comments about the story on Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobles.com or visit my website at www.k-elliott.com

K. Elliott resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. He has participated in and completed various creative writing courses at both Central Piedmont Community College and Queens University. In 2001, Elliott received a scholarship that allowed him to attend the North Carolina Writers Network Conference. Elliott was also a finalist in 2001 Keystone poetry competition.