3. It’s Finally Our Time
The drive from Cherry to Camilla’s house took fifty-three minutes.
I counted every single one. Every hour of freedom had shaped it now.
Crestwood looked different during the drive.
Cleaner in some places. Worse in others.
New luxury apartments stood three blocks away from boarded-up corner stores.
Smoothie shops had replaced old liquor spots.
Murals covered buildings where addicts used to sleep.
Young white couples walked dogs through neighborhoods they would’ve locked their car doors in twenty-four years ago.
Gentrification always came dressed like progress, but no matter how you dressed it up, it still felt like displacement to me.
I drove with one hand resting low on the steering wheel while old memories rose from the corners of the city without permission.
There go the basketball courts where YaYa got into her first fight.
There go the apartments where Kai and I sold crack before we learned how to clean money legally.
There go the church fish fries where Camilla used to volunteer every summer in shorts too little for my sanity.
Camilla.
Just thinking her name too long tightened something low in my chest.
Twenty-four years.
I spent twenty-four years trying not to love her loudly.
I had always had a crush on Milla. Our moms were best friends and made us spend all of our time in church.
She and YaYa liked to tell people they were cousins, but ain’t shit about me related to her fine ass.
She was three years younger than me and two years older than YaYa.
We spent our kid years crushing on one another but we never quite understood what it all meant.
When she turned sixteen, she got with a nut ass Nigga named Antwon that used to make her cry and second-guess herself.
They were together for a hot minute until I finally told her how I felt about her.
A Nigga was nervous to tell her the truth. The timing wasn’t optimal. Jackie was pregnant with Jazzy, and while Jackie and I never were in love or exclusive, I knew Milla would see being with me as destroying my family. So my admission was met with a simple “it’s not our time yet.”
She shared her sentiments but asked me to give it time.
She wanted me to be the best dad to Jazzy with no distractions, but three months later, shit hit the fan.
I was out mobbin’ with some guys I’ve been cool with since grade school.
I did a few drop-offs before we all got together.
We were supposed to hit Jordan’s nightclub and have a hotel party after.
But there was a shoot-out. A car was driving by and began firing at seven o’clock in the middle of downtown Crestwood.
I knew my homie was gang bangin’, but despite this war not being mine, I wasn’t about to not cover their back.
So I grabbed my piece and opened fire. I emptied my clip into the side of the car.
Shit moved fast, and the men I was with were shouting and running.
There were several innocent people on the street.
Moms with strollers and middle schoolers who were just trying to buy chips and soda from the corner store.
But a young white man was killed. He wasn’t the only person murdered that day.
Two of my friends lost their lives, but the media didn’t give a shit about their lives.
Because they wore the same color, the media painted their passing as justified.
Although I knew I unloaded my clip into the car and the angle at which the young man was killed couldn’t have been me, my family couldn’t afford private defense counsel.
I had a public defender who had ten other cases on the day of my sentencing.
The prosecutor was under pressure to close this case because the young man’s father was the city council president.
There wasn’t a channel that didn’t blast photos of the deceased in his high school graduation cap and gown, while my dead friends had their mug shots plastered everywhere, although they, too, were high school graduates.
Milla was there through it all. She came to every hearing and cried her eyes out during sentencing.
She wrote to me every week and never turned down my calls, even when it led to fights with her bitch ass Nigga, Antwon.
Before YaYa could hold down my expenses and Kai could safely use my stashed away money without suspicion, Camilla picked up extra shifts at McDonalds to make sure I had money on my books.
Over the past twenty-four years, she had wanted to try her hand at being together.
She hinted at it during visitations and even sent me a few risque photos, but as much as I loved her, I couldn’t be a selfish bastard and be with her.
Her words, “it’s not our time yet,” replayed through my subconsciousness.
Milla had a beautiful life. She had three children and a love for cosmetology.
I had my Nigga, Kai, help her get squared away with opening her salon, and she finally left Antwon’s ass alone for good about five years ago.
When X and I used to talk about Milla inside, he would ask me how I could let Antwon or someone else love her.
My answer was simple: no one could love her as I could, but prison demanded emotional discipline, and she deserved freedom from a system that would always control our happiness.
Yes, we may experience a small amount of joy from a wedding with an officiant or a conjugal visit, but it would be short-lived.
I needed to wait because I knew that loving her had become the only thing inside that place nobody could steal.
I stopped at a red light and rubbed my jaw slowly.
I can’t lie, I had seen other women while inside.
Women I met through cellmates’ girlfriends who would be granted special visits and wanted a pen pal.
Women who wanted a bill or two paid. I had carnal desires that felt too primitive for my Milla.
Prison created loneliness sharp enough to make men reckless.
But none of them ever touched my heart; that was the place Camilla lived.
None of them ever made me think about the future tense.
I pulled into a neighborhood in West Crestwood.
It was a quiet, gated community with tree-lined streets.
I pulled up to her single-story home with her white picket fence.
I listened to her tell me a million times about her dream home.
I’m so glad that Milla got her heart’s desire.
She always loved peaceful places, she said, “chaos followed her family enough already.”
I parked across the street and sat there, chest beating out of my shirt. I worked up the nerve to get out of the car and walked up to the craftsman-style home.
It wasn’t a huge house, but it was beautiful. It was the kind of place built carefully over time.
Wind chimes moved softly near the porch. A basketball sat near the front steps.
A row of flower pots with freshly sprouted pink flowers lined the walkway.
Then the front door opened, and every coherent thought in my head disappeared.
Camilla stepped onto the porch wearing gray leggings and an oversized sweatshirt with her curls piled messily on top of her head. She had on house shoes and gold hoops.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were on your way, Jare? I would have gotten dressed and done my face.”
“No need, Millie Millz, you’re still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.”
Age had touched her gently. Her body still moved with the same quiet confidence that had once ruined my concentration as a teenager.
She still carried herself as if she knew exactly who was watching.
Her thighs and ass were still just as thick and jiggled as she walked away from me to shut the front door.
Her mocha brown skin looked majestic, and the large Kool-Aid Man smile on her face told me she was just as happy to see me.
Milla blushed and came over to me, opening her arms for a hug. I leaned into her and wrapped my arms around her, embracing her closely.
“Jare, it’s finally our time.”