Chapter 24
Jerome ‘Rome’ Jackson
Day Eleven ‘Late Afternoon’
The car pulled hard to the right every time I let up on the steering wheel, but I kept my foot buried against the gas, forcing that old bucket down the street like I could put enough distance between me and what I’d done to make it disappear.
Wind pushed through the holes in the windshield where the bullets had torn through, carrying tiny pieces of glass across the dashboard and into my lap.
The whole inside of the car smelled like hot metal, burnt rubber, and my flesh mixed with blood.
It had already soaked through the sleeve of my shirt and was running down my arm, gathering at my wrist before slipping over my hand and making the steering wheel slick beneath my fingers. I tightened my grip anyway, clenching my teeth as another sharp pain through my shoulder.
A car sat on the horn when I drifted into the next lane.
I jerked the wheel back and nearly clipped the car beside me.
The driver leaned over his horn and threw his hand into the air, but I didn’t slow down long enough to see his face.
I couldn’t hear much over the rattling beneath the hood and the sound of my own breathing.
Every inhale came short and uneven, like my lungs hadn’t caught up with the rest of me yet.
I could still hear the gunshots too. They weren’t behind me anymore, but they kept going off inside my head, loud enough to make me flinch every time another piece of gravel struck beneath the car, but I had my Glock on my lap ready to use my good hand if needed.
I looked into the rearview mirror, expecting to see Lev’s truck cutting through traffic behind me.
There was nothing but headlights, yet my body stayed braced for another bullet to rip through the back glass.
That nigga had been trying to kill me. He probably would’ve too if I hadn’t gotten the car into reverse when I did.
I hadn’t even seen him pull up. One second I was staring through the windshield at Navy, and the next the glass beside my face had exploded.
The thought of her made my stomach hurt, but the anger rushed in before I could sit think about shit else.
This bitch had filed for divorce like the years between us meant nothing.
She had moved into that apartment and started running around with niggas who wanted me dead.
Lev kept showing up around her. Marv had been at her door too and I’m wondering how the fuck that worked when they were cousins.
Everybody had found a place in my wife’s life while I was left watching from the outside, and she expected me to believe none of it had anything to do with me.
Fuck that, she was trying her best to pay me back.
I had been sitting in her parking lot since the sun was high enough to turn the inside of the car into an oven.
The air conditioner only blew cold when the car was moving, so I kept the windows cracked and wiped sweat from my face with the bottom of my shirt whenever it rolled into my eyes.
I’d chosen a spot near the back of the lot where the tree branches hung low enough to break up the view through the windshield.
From there, I could see her building, the stairs, and most of the cars coming through the entrance without anybody paying much attention to me.
People had moved around the complex all afternoon while I waited.
I stayed there because Navy wasn’t answering me, and I was tired of being ignored.
I had already decided I wasn’t leaving until she stood in front of me and explained why she thought she could throw our marriage away.
Maybe I had fucked up, I knew I had, but there was a difference between being angry and being done, and I didn’t believe she was really done with me.
She had loved me too long and she had forgiven too much.
A few papers and a change of location weren’t supposed to erase that.
When she finally pulled into the lot, she looked worn out from work but happy at the same time.
I almost got out then, with my hand was already on the handle, but she moved too quickly, heading up the stairs without ever looking in my direction.
I told myself to wait. Let her shower, let her settle down, and then I’d go up there and make her listen.
Marv’s car rolled in the complex before I got the chance.
I recognized it as soon as he turned into the lot.
The anger that had been simmering inside me all day came alive so fucking fast I sat forward in the seat.
I watched him park crooked near her building and climb out looking like he hadn’t slept in days.
He kept rubbing at his nose as he headed toward the stairs, moving with the restless energy of somebody who was high.
He didn’t hesitate at the building or look around for an apartment number. He knew exactly where he was going.
The steering wheel creaked beneath my hands.
I didn’t know what business Marv had with Navy, but I knew it wasn’t anything good, and I knew I was tired of niggas connected to Lev walking in and out of her life like I didn’t exist. By then I wasn’t even thinking about going upstairs to talk.
I eased the car out of the shaded space and moved it across the lot, lining the hood up with the walkway that led from her building.
The engine revved when I pressed the gas, then dropped back into a rough idle as I held my foot on the brake.
I waited for Marv to come back out because that was who I meant to hit.
I could still remember the way I sat there watching the building, with my palms against the wheel while the old engine vibrated beneath me.
I pictured Marv stepping into the lot and looking up one second too late.
I pictured the front end catching him before he could move.
After that, I’d keep driving. That was the plan I’d built in my head during those few minutes.
Then Navy came running out and she moved so fast she almost missed the last step.
One of her shoes was gone and her shirt hung torn from her shoulder, and blood covered the side of her mouth.
She was screaming for help, looking back toward the stairs as Marv came after her.
Doors were opening above them and people were stepping outside.
Everything in front of me should’ve told me that she was in danger, that whatever Marv had come there for had nothing to do with her choosing him over me, but when I saw her, all I saw was everything she had taken from me.
The papers she filed, the home she left, the way she looked at me in that garage after I put my hands around her throat, not with love or fear, but like she had finally seen exactly what I was.
Then I thought about Lev and about his truck at her apartment and about another man being close enough to protect what was mine.
The anger got there before any of my common sense did and I pressed the gas.
The car jumped forward so hard my back slammed against the seat.
I heard people shouting before I hit the speed bump, but I didn’t lift my foot.
The undercarriage scraped the pavement when the car came down, and for a second the steering wheel bucked beneath my hands.
Navy turned toward the sound, and I saw her face change when she recognized me.
I saw her body twist as she tried to get out of the way, but the distance between us disappeared too fast.
The impact had been louder than I expected as the metal folded and glass cracked as the front of my car drove her into the vehicle behind her.
My head snapped forward, and my chest struck the steering wheel.
When I looked up again, she was trapped between both cars with her hands spread across the hood of the crackhead’s car that I paid to borrow, as she fought to hold herself up.
She looked through the windshield at me, and that was the part I couldn’t stop seeing.
There wasn’t any anger on her face. Instead, she looked hurt, terrified, and confused, like even after everything I had done to her, she still hadn’t believed I was capable of that.
I stared back at her with my foot still pressing the brake and the engine growling while the weight of the car held her there.
Then the first bullet came through and the pain in my arm dragged me back to the present so sharply that I swerved again. I cursed and pulled my hand away from the wound as blood covered my palm. “Fuck!”
My fingers were beginning to tingle, and every movement sent heat through my shoulder and down into my elbow.
I needed a hospital, but walking into one with a bullet wound meant questions, and there wasn’t a lie big enough to explain the damage to the car.
Suddenly, a blue light flashed across the rearview mirror and I looked up quickly.
A patrol car sat two vehicles behind me, with the lights spinning.
For a few seconds I told myself it wasn’t for me.
There were other cars around with other people doing stupid shit.
Then the siren chirped, and the officer pulled around the vehicle between us until he was directly behind the Impala.
“Driver, pull over to the right.” They yelled over the speakers.
His voice came through the speaker clear enough to cut through the noise inside the car, but my foot stayed on the gas as the road stretched ahead of me, and I measured it without meaning to.
The Impala was already struggling. The hood shook, the windshield was shot out, and the steering kept pulling toward the curb.
I had one good arm and no idea how much blood I had lost. Even if I ran, I wasn’t going far.
Then another cruiser appeared ahead, turning onto the road before slowing across my lane.
The officer behind me repeated the command, louder this time.
I eased my foot away from the gas and guided the car toward the shoulder as gravel popped beneath the tires as I came to a stop.
Before I had the gear fully in park, doors slammed behind me.
“Turn the engine off!”
I twisted the key and the motor coughed twice before going silent. Without it, the inside of the car felt too still. I could hear the cooling engine ticking beneath the hood and blood dripping from my wrist onto my jeans.
“Put both hands out the window!”
I lifted them slowly. The movement pulled at the bullet wound, and pain ripped through me hard enough to make my vision blur.
“Open the door from the outside and step out!”
I reached through the broken window for the handle.
The door squeaked when I pushed it open.
As soon as I put one foot onto the pavement, the officers rushed me from both sides.
A hand grabbed the back of my shirt and forced me against the car.
My cheek hit the warm roof with glass grinding beneath it.
“Don’t move!”
“I’m shot,” I said, but my voice sounded far away.
“We see it! Keep your hands where we can see them.”
One officer held my injured arm carefully while another pulled the other behind my back.
The handcuff closed around my wrist with a click that sounded like my final destination.
They searched my pockets, checked my waistband, then walked me away from the car while another officer shined his flashlight across the crushed hood and shattered windshield.
“This matches the description,” he said. “Gray Impala, severe front-end damage and multiple bullet holes.”
The officer holding me began reading my rights, but I only caught pieces.
The words rolled right through my ears while I looked at the front of the car.
Navy’s blood was smeared across the buckled hood near the passenger side and my knees felt weak.
For the first time since I hit her, there wasn’t enough anger left to hide behind.
I couldn’t blame Lev for pulling the trigger.
I couldn’t blame Marv for being at her apartment.
I couldn’t blame Navy for filing papers after everything I had done to her.
I had cheated, lied, stolen, and put my hands on the woman who had spent years trying to hold our family together.
Then, when she finally chose herself, I had watched her long enough to convince myself that her freedom was a betrayal.
An ambulance screamed past us in the opposite direction, with its lights flashing over the officers and the damaged car before disappearing toward the complex.
I watched it until I couldn’t see it anymore.
That was when I understood I hadn’t only lost my wife.
I might’ve taken her away from everybody who loved her, all because I couldn’t stand that she had finally stopped choosing me.
The officer opened the back door of the patrol car and guided my head beneath the frame.
As I lowered myself onto the seat, the cuffs pressed into my wrists and my wounded arm throbbed against my side.
There wouldn’t be a conversation to fix this this shit and no amount of apologies or lies smooth enough to change what the witnesses had seen or what the blood on my hood proved.
Everything that happened after this belonged to me and for once, I knew it.