CHAPTER TEN
THREE WEEKS LATER and Contessa and Tony Griffin, her longtime boyfriend, sat in their Astro van waiting for Z to come out of those prison gates.
“Where is he?” Tess’s voice was irritated. Tired. “He should have been out by now. We’ve been here for three hours already.”
Tony rolled his eyes. He was getting tired of her bitching. “It’s a prison, Tess. Hello? It’s a prison. They not gonna rush the process just because we’re waiting for somebody.”
“Then he shouldn’t have told us to be here at two if he knew it was gonna take this long for them to process him out.”
“How would he know how long it takes? They don’t tell him shit either. He’s on their clock. We’re on their clock. And that’s all there is to it. You just don’t wanna be here.”
“Damn right I don’t. You know how he treated Joy. I feel like I’m betraying her by being here.”
“I know how you feel. I love Joy too. And it’s messed up that she’s still in jail while he’s getting out. But me and Z been kickin’ it since we were kids.”
“He beat up an old lady, Tony.”
“And he served his time, Contessa! Besides, that ain’t why you’re all mad anyway. It’s because of how he treated Joy. But I’m not deserting my boy just because he didn’t get along with your best friend. That’s between them. I ain’t got nothing to do with that.”
Tess sat upright when the gates opened and prisoners began to walk out. And when they both saw Juan Sanchez walk out, they both sighed relief. “About time!” Tess said as she cranked up the van. It backfired. Sanchez laughed.
Tony grinned, too, as childhood friend made his way to their vehicle. “Still got his swag I see.”
Tess looked too. Sanchez was a nice-looking brother, but he walked like he still had that gangster life deep inside of him. All those years in prison didn’t teach him anything. She could see it already.
Tony hopped out, they hugged, and then Sanchez sat down on the back seat. “T and T!” he said happily as Tess began driving them away from there. “It’s been too long. How y’all doing?”
“We doing good,” Tony said. “How you doing is the question?”
“I’m so glad to be out of that place it ain’t even funny. Them niggas be actin’ like it’s a country club up in there. Forget that shit!”
Tess glanced at Sanchez through the rearview. He knew how she hated the n-word, but that never stopped Z.
“But for real though,” Sanchez said. “Where my girl at?”
Tess glanced at him again. “Which girl is that?”
Sanchez smiled and then laughed. “My best girl, how’s that? Where’s my Joy?”
“She broke up with you since before you got locked up, Z,” said Tess, “and you know it. Why you trippin’ like that?”
When Tess glanced through that rearview mirror at Sanchez again, his look had turned dark and menacing.
Almost hateful. “One thing you gonna learn about me,” he said, “is that nobody, and I mean nobody, breaks up with me. Nobody leaves me. If I say she’s my girl, she’s my girl until I say she’s not.
And her ass better realize that. She didn’t come to see me one time.
Not once in all those years I was locked up.
Oh we gonna have a conversation. Bet that.
Her ass gonna answer to me, one way or another. She got some ‘plaining to do.”
Tess glanced at Tony. They both knew how violent Z could be.
“It may take a while,” said Tony. “She’s locked up herself.”
Sanchez was shocked. “Joy? Joy Johnson got locked up too?”
“Yup.”
He couldn’t believe it. “For what?”
“Some attempted assault charge and other shit them white folks slapped on her in Chicago. She’s been locked up in their jailhouse for three weeks already.”
“They wouldn’t give her bail?”
“They gave it to her, but who’s gonna pay it? We ain’t got two dimes to rub together, and Gramps on a fixed income that’s less than what we make.”
Tess looked at Sanchez through the rearview. “Can you bail her out?”
Sanchez smiled. “I might be able to do a little something-something. But why should I? Her ass got what she deserved for not coming to see about me.” Then he laughed.
“Karma is a bitch!” he yelled out happily and Tess was shocked.
She knew he was a bastard, but she always thought he loved Joy.
But by the way he was acting, something was going on. But it wasn’t love.
She and Tony glanced at each other again.
Tony shrugged, as if to say let it be. But Tess couldn’t wait to get that vermin out of her van.
She hit the gas so suddenly and sped-up so fast that it caused Sanchez to jerk forward and slam his face against the back of the front seat.
“Damn girl, you trying to kill me?!” he yelled out.
Tess inwardly smiled. But she wasn’t going to press her luck. “Sorry about that,” she said to him.
When she looked over at Tony, he was smiling too.