CHAPTER TWO
The van for the Norris Daycare Center pulled up into the driveway of the small house and LaTisha “Tish” Payton, the driver, stepped out and began helping the little ones get off of the van too.
“I love you, Miss Tisha,” the first preschooler to step down said.
“Love you, too, Kiana. And be good, Alfred.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the second student getting down.
“Miss Tisha, can we play the chair game again today?”
“We’ll see, Margaret. But you have to do your work first. Stop running, Kendra. I told you about that.”
A little boy stepped down and pinched her on the arm. She swiped at him. “Quit, Jason! You play too much, little boy!”
“Are you gonna let us do the dance today, Miss Tisha?” another preschooler asked her.
“That’s up to Miss Norris.”
“She’ll let you do it if you ask her to.”
“If y’all behave,” Tish said as her iPhone began ringing, “then I’ll ask her. Come on, baby,” she said as she helped the last little boy get down from the van. He ran into the daycare behind his fellow students.
When Tish looked at her Caller ID and saw who was phoning her, she rolled her eyes. But she answered the call. “I’m working, Shake.”
“You got to come pick me up, though. My car just broke down at the gas station.”
“I told you I’m working. I’m already at work. And you know how Miss Norris is.”
“It’ll only take two minutes of your time. I’m right around the corner. All I need is a boost.”
“Get it from somebody else.”
“Ain’t nobody else around here! I can’t be late again, Tish, you know I can’t. I’ll get fired if I’m late again.”
Tish closed her eyes and shook her head.
“It’ll only take two minutes though.”
Why was she still even with him, she wondered as she opened the door of the van once again and climbed aboard. “I’m on my way.”
“It’ll just take two minutes I promise you.”
“I said I’m on my way, boy, dang!” Then she ended the call, tossing her cellphone up on the dashboard, and drove off. She called Miss Norris, her boss, to tell her she’d be right back as she drove.
Terrell Donte Dixon. Better known as Shake. He was nicknamed Shake because his mother had to constantly shake her head at the foolishness he always got himself into when he was a little boy. Tish had been with him since they were both seventeen. Now they were twenty-eight and she was always shaking her head too. Eleven years of headshaking and head-scratching and just plain what are you doing with that loser, Tish, from everybody who knew them. But bad habits were hard to break. Especially a habit you’d convinced yourself you had to have and couldn’t live without. That kind of bad habit was damn-near impossible to break. And that was Shake: a lifelong bad habit!
And when she pulled up to the gas station/convenience store called Big Mo’s, she just knew she was going to find out that the real reason Shake had called her was because he was out of gas and had no money to pay for any. But when she didn’t even see his car, she was confused. Jacksonville had its share of carjackings, she knew that to be a fact. But that fast? Or had someone come along, gave him a boost (or more likely gas money), and he took off without bothering to tell her? Sadly, that wouldn’t be unlike Shake either, she thought, as she pulled out her phone to call his trifling ass.
But as she was about to press his name, she suddenly saw the glass door of the gas station fly open and Shake come running out like a bat out of hell with a plastic bag in his hand. Then she heard a bullet from inside the station rip through and shatter the glass as she opened the door of the van in shock. “What’s wrong?” she yelled at him as he ran toward her.
But he was yelling for her to drive before he even hopped on. As she put the van in Drive, so confused she couldn’t hardly think straight, she suddenly saw the heavyset white man they called Big Mo, the station’s owner, come running out of that station with a rifle in his hand. “What the hell?” Tish was stunned.
And then Big Mo pumped that rifle and began firing at the van.
“Go!” Shake yelled as he hopped on. “Go!”
She was already speeding away as bullets could be heard ricocheting off of her boss’s van. “What’s happening?” she frantically yelled at her boyfriend. “Why is Mo shooting at us?”
“Just drive, Tish, damn! Just drive!”
But she was already driving. They were on the road now, speeding away. She could see through her rearview that Big Mo had run to the edge of his parking lot with that rifle still in his hands, but he didn’t fire anymore shots.
She looked at Shake. Still unable to believe what had just happened to them. “Why was he shooting at us?”
“I don’t know,” Shake said, breathing heavily as he stood there, unable to even make it to a seat. He beautiful light-brown skin was glistening in the sunlight. But his face looked terrified.
“You didn’t get hit, did you?”
“No, Tish! Just drive!”
“I am driving. Stop telling me to just drive.” Then she remembered that plastic bag in his hand. Did his crazy butt rob that place? “What’s that? Shake, what’s that?”
“Just drive, damn you! Just drive!”
“Don’t you talk to me like that! I’ll pull this motherfucker over and put your ass out at the curb if you don’t tell me why Mo was shooting at you and what’s in that bag!”
Then suddenly they both heard police sirens speeding up behind them. She looked through her rearview and Shake quickly looked through the van’s back window as they saw a police car, with two black cops on the front seat, chasing behind them.
“Ah man!” His voice was dejected, as if he knew he’d just made the mistake of his life and no headshaking was going to remedy. “Go faster, Tish! Go faster!”
That was when the officer in the patrol car yelled over the bullhorn: “Pull over. This is the Police. Pull over!”
But Shake was more adamant than ever. “Go, Tish, go! Keep going!”
“Are you crazy? I can’t outrun no cops in this hunk of junk van!”
“Just try anyway! Keep going!”
But Tish wasn’t about to get herself killed over his foolishness. She began pulling over. “What have you done, Shake?” Her heart was hammering. “You robbed Big Mo’s, didn’t you?”
His crimes had always been of the I’ll never do it again cheating variety or just general irresponsibility (like running out of gas or not enough money to pay his share of the rent or being late for work). But this was outlandish even by Shake’s standards. What on earth had he done?
But as soon as she pulled over, Shake, with bag in hand, did not wait to explain to her or the cops. He hopped off that van and took off running, leaving her to deal with the Police alone.
She should not have been surprised at all. He wasn’t exactly Mister Reliable ever in their relationship. But she was surprised. That was how bad she had it for that fool. She was deeply hurt and actually surprised that he would leave her by herself to answer to the cops.
But when the police car pulled over, the cop in the passenger seat jumped out and ran after Shake. Shake hadn’t made it a hundred feet when the cop yelled for him to stop, pulled out his revolver, and shot him in the back several times. Tish watched in horror as Shake’s knees buckled after just the first shot. By the third shot, he was falling on his face.
She was so blown away that she didn’t even realize that the second officer, the one that had been driving, had dragged her out of the van, slung her down to the ground, and had his knee in her back as he handcuffed her. She was on the ground wiggling like mad as she felt his knee and the tightening of those cuffs. But all the while she was staring at Shake.
The cop that had killed Shake ran up to him and grabbed the bag from his hand.
“We got our evidence?” yelled the cuffing cop, as if that evidence was more important than the lifeless body on that ground.
“We got it!” yelled the killer cop, holding up Shake’s bag. Both cops were black.
“Get your ass up,” said the cuffing cop. “We got you now. You’re in trouble now.”
Tish got up, but like always she couldn’t even focus on her own needs. She was too busy focusing on the lifeless body of her longtime boyfriend. She was so stunned by the turn of events that she showed no emotion.
Down through the years he’d done a lot to cause her to shake her head.
Beyond a lot.
But this trick topped them all.