Rain Storm Page 16

  Did my letters really save her life, Lord? Had I really been directed by You to write those letters all those years ago? Isaac thought.

  “Your letters talked about how God forgave you for all the stuff you’d done.” She smiled, and her eyes shone bright. “And I knew that you’d done an awful lot of stuff. So I asked God if He would forgive me too. And you know what?”

  “What?” Isaac asked.

  She smiled again. “He did.”

  “What did you need anointment for, Linda?”

  She patted Isaac’s hand. “You already know. That’s why you brought them with you isn’t it?”

  Jim leaned forward in his seat. “Linda, can you tell us what happened the day your husband died?”

  Her mouth twisted, and without much ado she admitted, “I killed him.” Isaac, Keith, and Jim looked at each other but said nothing. Linda continued, “That man took everything from me. He whored around. Beat me up when I complained. He beat me so bad when I was pregnant that I lost that baby and never conceived again. The only thing he ever gave me was Iona. I couldn’t let him take her too.”

  Keith asked, “Cynda says that Spoony wanted to prostitute Iona. Is that true?”

  Her eyes got that far-away look in them again before she answered, “When I asked him about it, he told me to shut up before he started beating on me again. So I took Iona into her room and I grabbed the ceramic vase I’d made for her and went back into the living room. At first I wasn’t sure if I could do it. But Cynda was unconscious when I went back into the room. I think she tried to hit him with my glass lamp but she must have missed. ‘Cause his mean ol’ self was standing over her kicking her even while she was unconscious.” She looked at the men. “I thought she was dead. Spoony had his back to me while he kicked her and I heard him say, ‘Now I’m going to go get Iona ready for her new job.’ I knew he planned to rape her and I couldn’t let that happen, not to Iona. So I screamed at him, ‘No you won’t,’ and I smashed him in the head with that vase and watched the evil seep out of him as he dropped to the floor.”

  21

  Isaac and Jim followed Keith to his house. Keith and Jim were excited to tell Cynda the good news, but Isaac told Keith, “I want to see Cynda. I need to know why she never told me I had a daughter.”

  When Keith opened his front door and saw chairs turned over and lamps broken on the floor, he frantically looked around the living room expecting to see Cynda’s body stretched out on the floor. When he didn’t see her, he started screaming, “Cynda! Where are you? Cynda!”

  Their bedroom door opened and Cynda’s bruised body came running toward him. She clung to him like a cat clawing a tree while trying to get rid of the dog on its tail. Kissing his neck, face, and lips she told Keith, “Please don’t leave me again. I was so scared.”

  Keith pulled her off of him and wiped the blood from his lips. He handed her a handkerchief to hold up to her lip, which was dripping blood. Her eye was swollen and her clothes were torn. He looked around the living room, asking, “What happened here?”

  “He beat me, Keith. I thought he was going to kill me,” Cynda answered. She tried to cling to him again, but he held her at arm’s length.

  The eye that wasn’t swollen was wide open and glassy. She couldn’t stand still in front of him.

  “Who did you have in my house?” Keith demanded to know.

  Shaking her head she said, “I didn’t call anybody to come over here. I told you I wouldn’t do that again.”

  Isaac said, “Look, Keith, man, the girl is a junkie. She obviously let some crack head tear up your house. How much more has to happen to you before you realize that loving her is the wrong thing to do?”

  Keith held up his hand. “I can see, Isaac. But she’s still my wife. Let me handle this, please.”

  “Fine.” Isaac threw his hands up. “I’m out, man.” He turned to Jim. “You want me to take you home. My boy has his hands full.”

  “If I’m not taking you too far out of the way, I’d appreciate it,” Jim said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Isaac told Jim, then turned back to Keith before closing the door and said, “You should have married Janet. Hopefully, it’s not too late.”

  Isaac shut the door and Keith turned back to Cynda. “Who did you have in my house?”

  “I’m not lying to you, Keith. I didn’t call nobody,” Cynda said. “The guy who brought the mattresses used to get high with me. He came back after he finished his deliveries and had some stuff with him. I tried not to take it. I really did. But he kept waving it in my face.”

  Keith turned the chair back over and sat down. He put his elbows on his thighs and his head in his hands.

  Cynda ran to him. She sat on the floor and put her hands on his leg. “I didn’t give him sex, Keith. I told him I wouldn’t do that. You believe me, don’t you?”

  Keith couldn’t look at his wife. Couldn’t pretend that he didn’t see his mother in Cynda’s eyes. Every time she opened her mouth he heard his mother’s voice.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” Dorthea had asked when she promised that she was kicking the stuff for good, for the hundredth time. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  No he didn’t. But she was dead before he could tell her that.

  “Why do you think he beat me up?” Cynda said as she swept her hand around the expanse of the living room. “Why do you think he tore up the furniture? Because I satisfied his every whim?”

  He moved her hands off of his leg and stood. He needed to be alone. He had to get away from his mother/wife. He needed to pray and ask his Lord how much more of this he had to take. In his throne room, Keith fell on his knees and moaned and moaned and moaned until his sorrow-filled heart was laid open before the Lord. He wallowed on the floor as he rolled back and forth. “Oh God, how long? How long?”

  ***

  Cynda knocked on the door and begged Keith to open it. “Come on, Keith. Don’t be like this. Look, I’m sorry okay? I really did try to be good. I just can’t help it.”

  She heard him wallowing around on the floor crying, “How long? How long?”

  She stepped away from the door and yelled, “Go ahead, cry to your God. Ask him to deliver you from the likes of me. See if I care.” She stomped into the bedroom, mumbling, “I didn’t order those mattresses. Didn’t ask that guy to bring those drugs over here? But everything is my fault.” She took off her torn clothes. “I don’t need this. I can make my own way.”

  She still had the money she earned a few weeks ago, she’d use it to catch a cab and get out of here. She put on a pair of jeans and one of Keith’s button-down shirts. The shirt was much too big on her, but it didn’t matter. She just needed to get out of there. As she walked away from the home Keith offered her, she vowed that she would not go back to prostitution. She would show Keith. She could turn her life around just as well as he had. He wasn’t better than her.

  Halfway down the block she remembered that she was on house arrest and that her ankle bracelet was probably sending off signals of her escape, but she couldn’t worry about that right now. No way was she going back to that house and listen to the wounded animal she’d left there.

  It was better for Keith that she leave. Time he faced the fact that she was no good. Love wasn’t an option for her. Too much had happened. Too much hadn’t happened.

  She caught a cab over to Jasmine’s place, figuring she would bunk with her for the night, then maybe go to one of them temporary places and try to get a receptionist job or something. She could handle a straight job. Little Miss Janet wasn’t the only one that could type – and she could take messages in her sleep.

  When she arrived at Jasmine’s, a party was just getting started. Cynda told Jasmine, “I’m just going to go to your room and crash. I’m not up for a party right now.”

  Jasmine was shaking her money maker as the CD player told them, “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes.”

  “What happened to your face?” Jasmi
ne asked before Cynda headed upstairs to rest.

  “Long story. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” Cynda waved her friend off.

  “Go on, make yourself at home, girl. I’ll talk with you in the morning.”

  Cynda stepped over forty-ounces and chicken bones. Jasmine was a heck of a party planner – a slob – but a good party planner. As Cynda walked upstairs a couple of the men leered at her, ogling her front and backside. She wanted to scream at them; tell them that she wasn’t a piece of meat. She was a human being with emotions and feelings just like anybody else. But they were all too high to care.

  She hadn’t brought a gown with her and there was no way she was sleeping in those rouged jeans. She pulled them off, unbuttoned Keith’s shirt, and climbed into bed. The sheets were soiled. Cynda wanted to climb out of that bed and go home. She’d just had a nice new mattress delivered and was sure it was comfortable. But then she heard Keith’s moans of agony – his praying – and knew that she couldn’t go home.

  She shifted her position on the dirty sheets and drifted into her nightmare. It was the same one that plagued her since she was a child.

  He was standing over her bed. “Hey, pretty one. Your mama’s out whoring around so you’ve got to handle her business tonight,” Uncle Romie said to her.

  Young Cynda smiled. “Stop joking around, Uncle Romie. Where’s my mom?”

  “I already told you, your mother is out making my money. So I’m going to show you how to make Uncle Romie happy.” He pulled the covers off her bed and leaned into her.

  His hot breath beat down on her. The familiar smell of burnt licorice and sour breath drifted in the air, made her afraid. “Uncle Romie, you’ve been drinking, that’s all. Go back to your room. I won’t say a word,” a scared Cynda said with a nervous chuckle.

  “I’ve got to teach you,” he told her as he took off his clothes and climbed into bed with her.

  Cynda screamed and screamed, but her mommy wasn’t there to hear her; wasn’t there to protect her.

  Someone was jerking Cynda out of her sleep, from one nightmare to another it seemed. They were breathing alcohol into her face. “Leave me alone, Uncle Romie!” Cynda screamed.

  Shoving her, the male voice said, “Baby, I ain’t your Uncle Romie, but if that’s who you want me to be tonight, I’m okay with that.”

  Cynda’s eyes flew open and beheld the rotten-toothed man grinning down on her. She sat up in bed. She wasn’t eight years old and Uncle Romie wasn’t raping her. She was at Jasmine’s house. “What do you want?”

  He offered her a swig of the forty in his hand. “Thought we could create a party of our own up here. Just you and me,” the man suggested.

  “Not interested,” Cynda told him, then pulled the covers over her head and tried to turn away from him. But the bedroom door opened again and another guy from downstairs walked in and shut the door. She rolled her eyes and asked, “What do you want?”

  “I want to play too,” he smirked.

  Hungry, sex craved eyes devoured her. They’d take it if she didn’t give it to them. And she wasn’t about to let them rape her. No one would ever rape her again. So, she looked the men up and down and said, “Let me see your money?”

  22

  Three days later when Keith found Cynda she was higher than the Sears building. Standing on the corner in broad daylight, telling anyone that would listen that if they had fifty bucks they could get an hour of ecstasy. And all this time Keith thought he’d been given the old friend discount that day he took her to lunch.

  Her brown leather mini-skirt looked more like a second skin than clothing. She’d obviously found someone to take the monitor off her ankle because it was gone. Keith was in the backseat of the unmarked police car. He pointed Cynda out to Officer Darryl and then got on the floor and put a blanket over his body. Officer Darryl was one of Keith’s church members. That’s why Keith called him. He knew that he could trust Darryl to help him out with this situation.

  Officer Darryl then slowly drove in front of Cynda and rolled down the window.

  She leaned her head into the window. “Hey, Daddy, what ya know?” she flirted.

  “I know I like what I see,” Darryl told her.

  “You want to spend some time?”

  “How much time you got?”

  Cynda looked around, then leaned her head back in the car. “How’s an hour sound to you?”

  “Hop in.”

  She opened the door and slid next to him. “So where we going, baby?” she asked when the car started moving.

  “That depends. How much?”

  She put her hand on his leg. “You can afford it.”

  He smiled. “That depends on whether I have to pull it out of the grocery money or the house note. So give me a price and I’ll know if I can afford you.”

  “Fifty bucks, baby. That’s all.”

  Officer Darryl pulled out his badge and Keith popped up from the back seat.

  Cynda screamed, then she looked at the person in the back seat. “Keith, you almost gave me heart failure. What’s wrong with you?”

  His eyes bugged out. He had to restrain himself from shaking her. “What’s wrong with me? I think we need to discuss your issues before we worry about mine, don’t you?” Keith snapped.

  She sneered at him. “I ain’t got no issues. Just minding my own business and wishing you’d do the same. Why are you bothering me anyway? I already heard that Linda is in jail. She confessed to killing Spoony so the cops can’t be looking for me.”

  Officer Darryl said, “That shows how much you know about the law. You can’t just up and leave when you’re on house arrest. We have to release you.”

  “You talking about that monitor?” Cynda waved the subject away. “That thing fell off. I don’t even know where it’s at.”

  “You’ve got bigger problems right now anyway, Cynda,” Officer Darryl told her.

  “Like what?”

  “Like the warrant that’s out for your arrest for skipping out on house arrest. Like prostitution and the fact that you just solicited a cop.”

  “This is entrapment.”

  Keith huffed. “Shut up, Cynda. Right now you’ve got two options. You can go to jail – and maybe those same women who beat on you before will be there and finish you off this time.”

  “What’s my second option? Go home with you?” She sneered.

  “No. You’re going to sign yourself into a rehab program today,” Keith told her.

  “Ah Keith, rehabs don’t work. Most of the junkies out here have been to rehab,” Cynda said.

  “You’ll make it work. I’ll help you,” Keith promised.

  Cynda turned to Officer Darryl. “How long would I have to stay in jail?”

  He kept his gaze on the road as he answered, “When we throw in the tampering charges you could be looking at a couple years.”

  She closed her eyes and exhaled. “Keith, why do you waste your time on me?”

  “I don’t consider it a waste. Now what’s it going to be?” Keith asked.

  Rolling her eyes she asked, “What are my choices again?”

  ***

  Standing at the intake desk of the rehab clinic Cynda disgustedly gave the place the once over. It smelled like old people; like old people with cats. The walls were dirty white. Not a spark of color anywhere. Just blah. “Do you really expect me to stay here?” Cynda said to Keith, who didn’t respond.

  “What about Iona? How am I going to see her if I’m locked away in this place?”

  “You didn’t seem that interested in seeing her while you were selling yourself on the street,” Keith spat.

  “I was trying to earn the money to get an airline ticket to Dayton.”

  “What happened? The money kept going up your nose rather than in your piggy bank?”

  Cynda banged on the bell at the intake desk and rolled her eyes. “Why don’t they have someone out here?”

  A lady with long micro braids and wearing an irritated, I’v
e-had-about-all-I-can-take-today expression came toward the intake desk and snatched the bell. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “Give me a Big Mac and some fries. What do you think I want, lady? I’m a junkie, okay. Open up your prison doors and let me in.”

  The woman glared at Cynda then turned to Keith. “Sir, is she requesting treatment from this facility?”

  “Yes, Keith replied to the woman. “She very much wants to get clean. Isn’t that right, Cynda?”

  “Based on the alternative. Yeah, I want to get clean,” Cynda answered.

  The woman kept her attention on Keith. “Has she ever attended this program before?”

  Leaning against the counter, Cynda waved. “Hey, I’m right here. You ain’t got to ask him nothing. Don’t I have to sign myself into this place? Well, then ask me some questions.” She stepped back and almost fell.

  “I would, ma’am, but you seem intoxicated,” the woman told her.

  Cynda turned to Keith. “I’m not going to be able to get anything past her, am I?” She turned back to the woman. “Just get me a bed, okay?”

  Cynda sat down and let Keith handle the paperwork. She signed the pages and indicated that she understood everything that was on them. When Cynda was finally admitted, Keith was told that he wouldn’t be able to see her for the first two weeks of the program.

  He hugged Cynda. “I’ll miss you. Get better, okay,” he said.

  As she was carried away she told him, “I’m not going to miss you. I’d rather be in this place than to live with you and that Bible you read every single night.”

  23

  By the end of the first week Cynda had the chills. She vomited three times and started having delusions of visitations from her grandmother and mother. One time when Cynda’s mother appeared, Cynda had to be restrained to her bed. On numerous occasions she screamed, “You let him touch me. I hate you.” Then she would chant, “Whore, whore, your mother’s a whore.”