* All characters in this story are of legal age. *
FOREWORD:
Before I close out this story of one eighteen year old's trial & tribulations signified by three very different women with one foot in and out of the mean streets, responsible writing must rear its ugly head.
Leroy "JON JON" Jenkins was found murdered in the 82nd block of Gramercy street. Cause of death was two close quarter gunshot blasts to the head that instantly took his life. The authorities have ruled this nigga's death "Gang Related" and the resultant case is destined to go cold after a month and a half of substandard investigation. Father of five known children and a few unsubstantiated, none of his family members have pursued justice. Dually noted is the late Mr. Jenkin's extensive criminal record which consists of petty theft, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, suspected manslaughter and several uncorroborated sexual assaults including a nephew and the daughter of his last girlfriend, Charmaine Adalyn Belle. The girl's mother Anita Ada Mae Belle has not been questioned at the time of his incident.
Three days prior to the murder of Mr. Jenkins, Ms. Belle turned in her resignation from her custodial job at county general hospital citing the need for a change of scenery for herself and her troubled eighteen year old daughter, Charmaine. Close friends of the Belle family consisting of the two women have related that Anita discovered her daughter deathly ill on the second day of the week in which the crime occurred. After a brief terse discussion with her daughter, Anita realized her daughter was pregnant. Everything unfortunately started to come together in her mind that same night as she was bent over taking backshots from Leroy when the violent alcoholic drunkenly called out her daughter's name as he waxed her own considerable fifty-four inch backside. The following day at approximately 9AM, a call was made to relatives with a history of "dirty hands".
Three hours outside of the city, Anita pulled into a Denny's restaurant under the pretense of getting something to eat with her daughter, dragging her into the bathroom where eighteen year old Charmaine was threatened with physical violence. Ms. Belle believed her daughter pregnant from an affair with the recently departed Mr. Jenkins. Under extreme duress, Charmaine revealed that she'd been trying to avoid her mother's paramour since he'd moved in with them. Just under six months prior, she'd had a pillow shoved down onto her head in forced horseplay that ended with her lost virginity on all fours nearly suffocated in the couch cushions. Mr. Jenkins continued advances escalating with every episode leading up to his murder. Charmaine also confessed to her mother, the numerous boys she'd been sleeping with to lessen and dull her horrific experiences.
Mother and daughter left the restaurant with their bond reforged, both aware of the sacrifice made to liberate the girl from a monster. Charmaine did mention the boy she'd liked since her early years of high school fondly, admitting that she'd lied shortly after they were finally together. She'd told him that one of the boys on the basketball team had deflowered her, but that lie was undone by Leroy's sudden appearance. Upon getting his description, the elder Ms. Belle vaguely recalled some kid standing near the alley outside her home. She considered calling up those two older "criminally minded" cousins to clean up but relented out of love for her only child. They were leaving for greener pastures in her home state of Mississippi.
Surprisingly, Charmaine ended up carrying the baby to term as both women decided to raise the little boy, Zaire Belle with the story of his deceased father being absentee. Ms. Belle found work in a local hospital cafeteria while Charmaine completed school by getting a G.E.D later finding work as a receptionist for a black owned construction company where she would meet her future husband, one Jesse Lee Smits, ten years her senior. Two more kids after a conventional romance and a large house built especially for her, Charmaine Smits found a happy ending she'd been looking for all her life.
-Now that I've got that out of the way...
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HOPE, CHARITY & FAITH-THE CONCLUSION PART ONE
"Jaleel?"
"Yeah mom?"
"Stop moping, get your ass out of that bed and mow the lawn." Truthfully, I had been sort of crestfallen for an extended period of time since the incident with Charmaine and its subsequent conclusion.
I took that murder as divine intervention but was still disturbed by it. There was no way I was talking about it with my mother or any of my older relatives who would've instantly dimed me out. She never returned to school after that day and I felt responsible. The only people who might have known what happened in intimate detail beyond myself were Kimberly Bivens and the human jackal, Treena. There was no way either of them were talking with me. Kimberly even renewed hostilities with me on the low, but wisely stayed out of my phone.
Earlier in the week she'd finally mustered the courage to administer a light slap to my cheek as she went to her seat prompting Mr. Harvey to immediately dispatch her to study hall detention followed by Treena for laughing wildly. It was heartening to find that my slight teacher finally discovered the means to retake his classroom from its teen dissidents. Kimberly ended up dating another member of the baseball team, initially in a bid to make her estranged ex-boyfriend jealous but he wasn't biting.
Her new beau Gerow was hip to her womanly wiles using the opportunity presented to judiciously rail the stuffing out of her apple bottom with no fucks given. There was no way she was dumping him so close to prom, and Gerow knew it. So my serpentine ex-whatever knew the order of the day was face down, ass way way fucking up in the air. He wasn't shy above sharing pics of her panty clad butt with his teammates either which earned Kimberly a finger wagging sermon from her former about promiscuity. I laughed my ass off that day, much to her chagrin due to the two classes we shared.
I usually got in trouble for dragging my feet when it came to cleaning the yard and clipping our considerable hedges, but this Saturday afternoon I welcomed the change in routine. I wanted it to be a distraction from current events but couldn't fully divert my thoughts. I took consolation in the fact that I got a smile on my face whenever I thought of Kimberly Bivens, but that inevitably brought my thoughts to Charmaine Belle. It got me to wondering what could've been if she'd made herself known back in the day instead of me ending up with a toxic narcissist. Charmaine's extreme emotion left me with the mindset that all was better left unsaid in the long run. I imagined that she might've been a smothering presence in my life not discounting her physical propensity for explosive violence.
This brought my thoughts to Hope Arias who'd been the catalyst for my immediate turn of fortune sexually and unintentionally everywhere else. Her childish beauty and lush, packed curves would've sent me reeling if not for the daily drama which she intentionally took part in, albeit on a remote level. There was the thought that I should be angry with her for trolling Kimberly to assuage her own issues with the professor she'd engaged in a one sided affair. Hope took me with unbridled passion and desperate lust wanting to bury herself in my situation. That day and following night was one for the ages, but not without cost at the expense of my friendship with my best friend, Ricky Arias. After I'd been hospitalized, Hope confessed the tryst to her brother who promptly unfriended and blocked me on all access points, social media and otherwise.
"Fucking coward."
My brow furrowed at the thought of the argument I'd been gypped out of while lying unconscious in my hospital bed. I still had a court date coming up with Jay Stello. Some lawyers were calling my mom, but I didn't know anything beyond that.
I'd tried calling Hope up a number of times only to find out that I'd been similarly blocked. Before I knew it, the yard was completely finished leaving me a bit parched but unwilling to go back into the house knowing some new chore would be waiting. I decided to walk down to the corner store for a drink and snack. The kids around my neighborhood jokingly referred to the chintzy establishment as the "Bootleg 7-11" and I wasn't picky.
My mind drifted further to Faith who'd stayed by my side after the assault out of some sense of karmic responsibility initially only to later admit feelings that would only be addressed in one night. We were robbed perhaps, but her own actions created that catalyst as well when she wrongfully mentioned my situation with Kimberly Bivens to Charity Gilbert.
Looking to avenge herself on a rival, I'd become a living weapon used to bend the knee of upwardly mobile, future millionaire Jay Stello. Yeah, the big colleges were still salivating at the prospect of having him join their ranks on the football fields and even news coverage was downplaying the incident. His family picked up the tab for my hospitalization although I heard mention that a college booster was likely funneling the funds in exchange for a signature on the dotted line. Charity Gilbert had been momentarily disposed by the rest of the football team after being exposed as the one pulling Jay's strings behind the scene. It was a momentary victory, but she was sitting tall as the student body president while Faith was in exile.
I figured she was well into a new life in China with her father recalling with painful clarity, the photos shown to me by a confidant. Particular in my mind was this Chinese guy around her age noticed in more than a few of the pics of her overseas life. Days drifted by added little bits of paranoia and resentment of entanglements imagined. Faith and I made no promises to one another during that one momentous night as we fucked, made love and everything in between knowing our time was fleeting.
There was this gasping desperation during the last few hours before we jointly ventured to the airport chauffeured by my mother. Just as she'd finished packing up her bag, it became imperative that we have one another a last time before the world violently sheared us apart. I fucked her so hard that I could still feel it as her plane flew off into the horizon. For the first few days afterwards, I was inconsolable. Now for the most part, there was a fleeting numbness.
Returning to by life in the urban diaspora was the least of my concerns as I now had that layer of emotional protection Hope had earlier tried to give me, but it just wasn't enough now that Faith was the stuff of memory.
"Fuck it; I'll get it from the horse's mouth."
Thirty plus minutes later, I was sitting on a bus almost arriving at my destination unsure of what I'd find at the endpoint. I was determined to see my former best friend and hash things out or let it burn in final dramatic fashion. I wanted some closure as we neared the last weeks of our final year of high school. It was a leap of Faith as I exited the bus walking across the street over the middle divider median which served as a mini-strip people used to walk their pets. I found the fence in front of his place locked but resolved to climb it. It was a little high, but I managed just fine, ringing his doorbell.
"Who is it?" A unfamiliar voice answered after a prolonged period of ringing.
