Chapter 15
Dominique ‘Dolo’ Shaw
We were all at the hospital. Planted inside the family waiting room area. Nobody was saying anything. I think we all were sitting around with the same fears right now.
Was my brother going to die? It’s what we were all thinking.
It’s what we all had been asking each other during our first moments of walking in the room.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared about anything in my life.
We’ve been inside this waiting room for about two hours, and we still didn’t have any answers.
I showed my ass about three times already, going over to the nurses station, demanding answers, wanting to know what the fuck was taking so long in surgery.
My dad was here, and during all three of those crash outs, he had to get a hold of me, walk me out of the hospital doors, just to get me to calm down.
We’re talking about a little nigga that was four years younger than me, and I remember being a kid, begging my parents to give me a little brother.
I taught Diego a lot of shit. Yeah, we had our daddy in the picture, but you gotta remember that for a lot of years, my mama up and left that nigga, moved us to Spain, so I had to step up, and be the daddy for my little brother.
I taught him how to piss straight. Taught him how to ride a bike.
Taught him how to have confidence when he wanted to go after a girl.
Most importantly, I taught him the rules of the dope game.
My brother liked to clown me, and tell me that I was soft, but I made sure that I went through every day of my life, telling him that I loved him.
Getting that call from Riot, and when she started screaming, and crying like that, I already knew what time it was.
My girl don’t cry like that. She’ll cry, but when she does, it’s just a few tears, but nothing to that extreme.
I knew the difference between the kind of cry when I just simply yelled at her ass and hurt her feelings, versus something deadly, and detrimental.
When she said my name like that, followed by her screaming, and I didn’t hear Diego in the background, I already knew what was up.
I knew a tragedy happened. When she confirmed it, it felt like I took the same bullets to my chest that my brother had taken.
She said the kind of words to me over the phone that I always feared hearing.
I feared one day that a nigga would try to get at me by going through my brother.
That’s what happened tonight, and I didn’t know how to feel.
Inside the room, it was me, my mom, and my dad. Some of my father’s side was here, as well as my mom. Loco pulled up too. Bray and Kendrick were here too.
Riot was in here as well. I was sitting, and she was on the other side of the room, standing.
I think she was scared to come near me. I knew how her brain worked.
I knew how she operated. I hoped she didn’t think that I was blaming this shit on her.
She was taking it hard. She’s going through what we call in the streets, ‘shell-shocked’.
It’s what you through when you witness violence that appears literally right in front of you.
Physically, her body was here, but mentally, I’m sure she was still at the crime scene.
She hasn’t sat down once. Since we’ve been in this room, she’s been standing in the corner.
I felt fucked up in this moment as a partner because my girl was obviously hurting, and in a dissociating state, but I had my own shit going on, where I couldn’t be there for her the way that I should have.
In the quietness of the room, Riot picked up her feet, and she cried her way out of the room.
“Go check on her. She’s blaming herself for this shit. I know how survivors guilt works. Diego got hit, and she didn’t,” he said it to me in a firm kind of way, as if it wasn’t up for discussion.
My pops was calm, but in this moment, I knew that he was scared for Diego just like the rest of us.
He sat back in his seat, with his arms draped across my mom, who was taking it hard.
Diego was her baby. She still treated his ass like he was four.
She’ll cut his food up and blow it for him if you let her.
I stood up, so that I could walk out of the waiting room area, and search for Riot. I happened to look to my right, and I found her at the end of the hallway. She was getting ready to walk inside of one of the family styled restrooms.
I rushed over, so that I could get to her before she went in and locked the door. I knew that once she got on the inside, and locked herself in, that she wasn’t going to answer the door for me.
I was able to catch up with her as soon as she touched the door. I pushed the door open at the top, she turned around and looked at me with red, puffy eyes, and tears that were falling. She then turned back around, so that she could go inside. I followed her, closing and locking the door behind me.
I posted up on the door. I folded my arms while watching her. She was pacing back and forth, while softly crying.
“He tried to save me. He…tried. He put.. he put my life before his. He saw… he saw the truck before I saw it. He leaped, trying to cover me… and… I saw the bullets go into him. I watched him lay there… and the last thing that he told me was to tell you that he loved you,” she cried, and no lie, those were the words that broke me.
Knowing that all the things that he could have possibly said to her, what he chose to let her know was that he loved me.
My eyes grew watery the second she said it, and when I blinked, tears fell.
I couldn’t even fight this shit. I couldn’t even try to play big gangsta and not cry in front of her because the tears had a mind of their own.
“Don’t blame me for this, Dolo. Please, don’t.
I acted as quickly as I could. I sent shots off towards the car, trying to get whoever was in there.
I couldn’t see who was in there. I tried though.
I know you told me before that I always seem to be somewhere when bullshit happens, but I hope you don’t blame this on me.
Please,” she was hysterical, as she cried, standing in the middle of the restroom, looking at me.
Riot was in a yellow top, and you could see my brother’s blood on her top. The light denim jeans that she was wearing had scuffs at the knees, a little dirt, and some of his blood rested there as well.
I hated that she felt like I blamed her for this.
Through my own pain, and everything else that I was feeling right now, I reached my hand out, pulled her to me, making her stand directly in front of me.
I placed both hands on the side of her face, while looking her in her eyes.
Tears dropped from my eyes just as much as they dropped from hers.
“I don’t blame you for this shit, bae. I swear to God I don’t.
If anything, I’m standing here, and I’m blaming myself.
I should have pushed a little harder for Diego to go in a different direction from me.
I should have made him pursue ball and not try to follow in my footsteps.
This shit don’t have anything to do with you.
We don’t know who those niggas were in that black truck, but I can assure you that they were probably looking for me.
Not you. Not Diego. I’m not blaming you for this.
When I told you that shit awhile back, telling you that you were always on the scene when bullshit popped off, I wasn’t even blaming you then.
I told you before that when I said that, I was referring to hating that you always had to be around when bullshit pops off.
Okay?” I asked her, and through her tears, she nodded her head up and down.
“How many niggas you think were in the car?” I asked, after I calmed down a little bit, and she did the same. I let her face go, but she was still standing in front of me. She was using the back of her hands to wipe her eyes.
“I feel like it was only two. Only the passenger side window was rolled down, and that’s the window that they were shooting out of.
The back windows never went down. I had to have popped at least one of them.
I sent out multiple rounds into that truck.
One of them had to die,” she told me, and I nodded.
My mind went towards Elijah, and Elias. It had to be those two. They had been too quiet ever since we ran up in their spot and took their shit.
“Thank you. You held shit down for my brother, and you know I’ll always love you for that,” I responded, and with just a simple nod of her head, she ended it at that.
We didn’t leave out of the restroom until we both got it together, which was about five minutes later. Riot washed her hands at the sink because there was blood on her hands as well. I came over, and I did the same.
After that, I opened the door, so that she could walk out first, leading the way back into the waiting area. I didn’t let her go back to that wall and stand there alone. This time, I pulled her over to me, making her sit right next to me.
It was still quiet in here. The only sound was coming from my mom. She was still softly crying, and sniffing.
It took about another hour for the doctor to finally walk into the waiting room area. The second he walked in, it’s as if it was a race for each of us to stand up out of our seats. We all got up quickly, barely giving him any time to fully get into the room.
Judging by his blue scrubs, and the exhaustion written all over his face, you could tell that he was fresh out of surgery. I’m not sure what had all taken place back there during surgery, but it was obviously enough to have him with this drained look in his eyes.
“Family of Diego Shaw?” he asked.
“That’s us. I’m his big brother. These are his parents. Everyone else in here is friends and family. My brother going to be good, right?” I had to go ahead and ask the million-dollar question.