Christmas in the Hood (31 page)

“Wayne, Akbar, Prey!”

“Right here, CO,” said inmate Prey, who was known to all as Akbar, as he stood in the front of the dayroom table.

“Corey Grant!”

“Yo, right here. Pass that back,” Grant, who was known as C-Understanding, replied.

“Damn, kid. Sue stay floodin’ you,” another inmate said to C-Understanding as the mail was passed back.

“Yeah, that’s my baby,” Grant replied.

“Shawn Hartwell, mail!”

“Yo, CO, I’m on the phone,” Hartwell yelled. “Somebody snatch that for me.”

“I got you, dawg,” another inmate yelled.

“Antwuan Johnson, mail!”

“Pass that,” a friend of Johnson’s called out.

“Yo, Chet!” he yelled up to the top tier, where Johnson’s room was.

“Wiz, you called me?” the inmate referred to as Chet asked, sticking his head out of his cell. “Hold up Harris, you got mail, too,” the CO said to the inmate referred to as Wiz.

“A’ight. Yeah, you got some love down here,” Wiz called back up.

“A’ight. Bring it up for me.”

“Drake Barksdale, mail!”

“Yo Blue, Big Blue, Blue!” one of the inmates yelled up to the top tier, where Drake slept.

“What’s up?” Big Blue asked as he stuck his head out of his cell.

“Yo, you got some love down here.”

“A’ight. I’m comin’ down now.”

“Listen up! Mail call is every day at five p.m. Y’all know that, so for all you guys that be expecting mail and know that your family members and friends write you, you should have your asses over here during mail call. Not on the phone, not playing cards, not in the shower, and not in your room. Now the next time I’m going to just send your shit back, and you know how long it’ll take before you receive it again,” the CO reprimanded. “Now let’s start this again. Vincent Jackson, mail!”

There was no answer.

“Here we go again with the bullshit. Y’all holding me up. Jackson, Vincent Jackson, inmate number 803050,” the CO called out, becoming frustrated as the inmates looked at one another, wondering who Vincent Jackson was.

“I think he got bailed out,” one of the inmates from the back yelled, frustrated behind the fact that the inmate the officer was calling was holding mail call up and he was expecting an important letter that he was anxious to receive. Every letter during the week of Christmas, due to the long holiday schedule for mail delivery, was an important one.

“Aye, V, ain’t that you,” an old-timer asked Victorious, who was preoccupied with his next strategic move on the chessboard.

“Don’t try to throw me off, old head. You goin’ down today,” Victorious said as he continued to contemplate his next move, thinking that the old-timer was trying to distract him.

“Nah, young blood, I’m serious,” the old-timer replied.

Hearing the tone of the old-timer’s voice caused Victorious to look up. When he finally did, he saw the expression on the oldtimer’s face, which indicated that he was, in fact, serious.

“Me, what?” Victorious asked, having no clue as to what the old-timer was referring to, since his attention had been focused solely on the chess game.

“Your name Vincent Jackson, right?”

“Yeah, why? What’s up?” Victorious asked, wondering why the old-timer was calling him by his birth name.

“They just called you for mail,” the old-timer told him.

“Mail?” Victorious questioned, thinking that the old-timer might have been mistaken. He had been in the county jail for a
little over a year and had never gotten a visit or used the phone, other than to call his public defender, let alone received any mail, so the thought of receiving any now had him puzzled.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah, 803050, right?” Before he had the chance to answer, Victorious heard it for himself.

“Last call, Vincent Jackson, mail!” the CO repeated for the third and final time.

“Oh shit!” Victorious said as he hopped up from the chess table. “CO, right here, Jackson!”

As soon as he said it, everyone in the whole dayroom instantly had turned their attention in Victorious’s direction. As many of the inmates who knew Victorious or knew of him, no one had given it any thought that the name Vincent Jackson could have belonged to him, not even the other older heads with whom he interacted daily, like Akbar, Donnie Ray, and old head Claude from Plainfield. Victorious was known as a laid-back, quiet individual, and was considered to be an old head himself by the other inmates, in spite of his being only thirty-three years old. Everybody knew that he had time-in in the county and was fighting his case, but that was as far as they knew because he didn’t discuss his situation, which everyone respected. And just as Victorious had thought to himself, no one had ever seen him get any visits, play the phone on a regular, or receive any mail, which was why it came as a surprise to everyone when he came up and got the letter that had been delaying mail call. Even the CO was surprised when Victorious came up.

“Jackson, you didn’t hear what I said?” the CO asked, not wanting to come down on Victorious too hard because he had
been working the unit for the past few years and had never heard Victorious’s name called for anything, so he figured that this had to come as a surprise to the inmate and may have possibly been his first letter since he had been in.

“Nah, honestly I didn’t,” Victorious replied as the CO handed him the letter.

“Just listen up for your name the next time, all right?” the CO said with a little authority in his tone, not wanting the other inmates to think that he was being soft or showing favoritism, being that he had just given them all a lecture.

“Yeah, pardon me,” Victorious replied just before he stepped off, knowing that the CO could have been a dick if he wanted to be.

“Keith Wooten!” the CO continued.

Victorious was curious to know who had written him as he checked the return address. The heading of the letter read, “Guess Who?” But Victorious was far from being in the mood for playing guessing games, so he opened it up. As soon as he began reading the first few lines, he already knew who had sent him the letter without having to see her name.

Dear Victorious
,

I know that you’re probably surprised to be hearing from me …

“Yo, old head, I’m goin’ up to my room for a few; I’ll be back down later,” Victorious called over to the old-timer he was playing chess with.

“A’ight, young blood, handle your business, I’ll catch up with you later,” the old-timer responded, understanding more than Victorious probably thought he did. Victorious climbed up the steps that led to his cell, went inside, and closed the door behind him as he sat at his room’s desk.

Dear Victorious
,

I know that you’re probably surprised to be hearing from me, but nonetheless, this letter is long overdue. I hope that when you receive this missive, in spite of all that you’ve had to endure, you are holding up in there. Knowing you, I’m sure that you are. Anyway, I wish that things could have been different between us, but like they say, it is what it is. I didn’t write you to throw anything up in your face or anything. My only reason for reaching out to you really is because overall I feel that you deserve to know how it got to where it went, which I’m sure has been puzzling you for the past thirteen months.

First I want to start out by saying that it was not my idea or my doing setting you up. That was your man’s work. The only thing that I am guilty of, as far as that is concerned, is fucking him too good, which caused him to do what he did to you. But if it’s any consolation, he and I are not together, and because of his actions, he got what his hands called for. In my opinion, he did not deserve your friendship. With friends like that, who needs enemies? You’re probably saying that same thing about me right now, but like I was saying, I saw to it that you never have to worry about seeing or hearing from him ever again, and I do mean never. As far as us, you must believe me when I tell you that I did love you and I still do, but what took place had nothing to do with how I felt about you. It only made it more difficult to do. It was never anything personal, even though my feelings were never supposed to get involved. It was just business!

As for Hasan, what I’m about to say doesn’t justify how and why things turned out the way they did, but it may give you a better understanding. Just as I loved you, I also loved Has. In fact, he was my first true love. Where you and I only had two and a half years in together, he and I had nearly twenty. All that happened was on the strength of both my love and loyalty to him.

He told me how he had gotten close to you up in there and how you were going through it, and for a minute I felt fucked up, but I knew that there was nothing that I could do about that. Had I not thought that you would have tried to find me when you got out, I would have paid your bail, but knowing the type of individual that you are, I knew that you wouldn’t rest until you found me, so I couldn’t take that chance.

By the way, for what it’s worth, Hasan and I are no longer together, either, in case you were wondering. For some reason he just couldn’t accept the fact that I fucked both you and your man, which he suggested, with his insecure, ungrateful ass, so like Supreme, he, too, had to go!

Well, that’s basically all I wanted to say, so I guess I’ll bring this notation to an end.

But in conclusion I want to say that I hope that you don’t hate me, because, like I said, it was nothing personal, just business. If you do, then I don’t blame you. But if that’s the case, then I think that it would make you feel a whole lot better about the situation or at least a little if instead of you chargin’ what happened to my heart, you simply charge it to the game, sweetheart.

From You Know Who

PS. To try to trace this postmark would be useless and a waste of time ’cause it’s bogus. You’ll never find me when you get out. Oh, yeah. Merry Christmas.

Victorious couldn’t believe what he had just finished reading. He was amazed at how Tameeka had the audacity to write to him after the snake shit she had pulled on him more than a year ago, but at least now he had more clarity on his situation and could put what happened behind him—for now anyway.

He got up from the little six-by-nine cell desk, turned toward the stainless-steel toilet, threw the letter in the commode, and began urinating on it. He could see Tameeka’s handwriting on the envelope fading as he stood there relieving himself.

“I can’t believe this bitch!” he said to himself, letting out a somewhat psychotic laugh as he shook his head in disbelief. As the letter continued to dissolve from the combination of water and urine, Victorious couldn’t help but to think about the predicament Tameeka had played a major part in getting him in. And now he was practically being forced to sign what he thought to be the rest of his life away to a thirty-year plea bargain for the
five kilos of crack cocaine that were found in his Benz. Remembering Tameeka’s ending words, as much as he would have liked to disagree with her, he knew that there was no way that he could, because she was absolutely right.

At his own expense, getting caught with his pants down, Victorious had no other choice but to charge it to the game.

Acknowledgments

K. Elliott
I want to thank God and my parents, Otis and Margaret Douglas. Thanks also to Nikki Turner for the opportunity to be a part of this project.

Mo Shines
First and foremost, I have to thank God, creator of Heaven and Earth. Thanks to my wife. Thanks to all my family. Thanks to Nikki Turner for believing in me and giving me this opportunity. Thanks to all my friends, present and past. With God all things are possible!

Dee Blackmon
I would like to thank Nikki Turner for her vision, her patience, and for allowing me to take part in such a great project.

Seth “Soul Man” Ferranti
I would like to thank my wife, Diane, Kevin, Tiffany, Tuck, Bing, Supreme, Lil’ Bob, Eyon, Wahida, Joe Black, Kwame, Tut, Fridge, Ben, Ethan, and of course the queen herself, Nikki Turner.

J. M. Benjamin
To The Most High. You continue to protect and guide me on the straight path, both personally and professionally. To the one who made this possible, “The Queen” of this genre, Nikki Turner, “I told you I was gonna come home and do it.” Thanks for believing in me. My mother and children, I love you. My brother, nothing or no one can ever come between us or change history. My partner of Real Edutainment Publishing, Kev, Dawg love is love. Nancey Flowers, to thank you would be an understatement, friends 4 life. To my man Randy Kearse, we’ve proved that two brothers can plan to do something positive together, come home, and follow through; let’s keep doin’ it!

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