“That’s Astrud Gilberto singing. You probably never heard of her either, have you?”
“No, but I’m gonna have to check both of them out.”
“I have a lot of great jazz that I can expose you to … if you’re interested.”
“I am. Very.” I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “So, see that you do,” I said, thinking that I was attracted to women like Michaella and Cortisha, but I am drawn like a moth to a flame to women like Anya and Lo-Lo.
“I will,” she said as we arrived at her apartment building.
We sat there looking at one another and listening to the song until it was over, but the second it was over and before I had a chance to get out to come around to open her door for her, Michaella jumped out and slammed the door. When I got out of the car, I heard her scream and I looked and saw that Michaella was being held by a man with a gun.
His arm was wrapped around her waist and his gun was to her head. In that second, all my worst fears were realized. I’ve always feared that my shit would come back to hurt somebody I cared about.
“Let her go!” I shouted and eased my hands in my pockets as I came closer to him.
“Stop right there! Don’t come any closer!” he yelled.
I ignored him and kept moving toward him slowly.
“Are you all right, Michaella?”
She nodded her head quickly, but I could tell that she was scared, and I was scared for her. His gun hand was shaking and that bothered me. He seemed emotional and jittery and that wasn’t good. It meant that anything could set him off, or he might kill her accidentally. Either way, Michaella would be dead and I had enough death in my world.
“What you want?”
“I want you and your woman to die tonight! That’s what I want!”
“First of all, she’s not my woman.” I said calmly, and I could tell by the look in her pretty brown eyes that those words hurt her.
He laughed and gripped the gun a little tighter. “Nice try. I see you over here all the time. That’s how I knew where you were going when I followed you out of The Late Night with her.”
“Let me straighten you. You don’t know anything about me because if you did, you would know what a mistake you’re making right now, and you would apologize to the lady and walk away.” I kept coming around the
car. “But you don’t know nothing. All you ever see is me getting pussy and you wanna be like me.” I laughed and stepped up on the sidewalk. Now that I was closer, I could see that he was young; in his late teens, maybe early twenties. “So, go ahead and kill her. She’s pussy, just like the rest of them.”
He hesitated a little, but that was a good thing. It meant that I was getting to him. I was going hard at him, but it was hurting Michaella. The look in her eyes said that hurt was quickly replacing her fear.
“You mutha fuckas are all the same. Don’t care about your women. You should be trying to protect her. That’s what men do for their women, they protect them! Not use them up and then throw them away like they’re trash!”
I took a step and pointed at him. “Protect her … like you’re doing?”
He started to lower the gun, and I thought that I would have a chance to get the gun away from him and save Michaella, but he put it back to her head.
“Mike Black. You think you’re special, but you’re just like the rest of them. You don’t care about nothing or nobody.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, kid.”
“Get the fuck out of here! All these bodies dropping around here got Vicious Black’s name written all over them just like my father.”
“Your father? Who the fuck is your father?”
“Montel Lamont! And you killed him because he didn’t mean shit to you?”
“I didn’t kill your father.”
“You lie!” he shouted.
“You’re wrong.”