Correspondence****Chapter Three

I negotiated with every emotion while I laid in the infirmary; I wanted to die. Die for Redd, I knew my nigga. He didn't have no hoe in him and was the most solid nigga I knew. Shit, I remembered how I use to sneak out of the window to be with him after he would be finished on the block, but before he went home to Shameka. He would lay that pipe just right and I would sneak back in. He couldn't get enough of this 16 year old pussy, and I loved the way he would have me barely able to close my legs afterward. That bitch started playing on my mama nem house phone, even the phone in the pastor's study. I got caught fucking Redd in back of his Caprice in the driveway one night, my daddy had shone the flashlight inside the window and caught Redd grinding inside me deep. I told him to stop, he said 'fuck yo daddy' and kept going. I watched Daddy's face and looked in his eyes, he couldn't look away. I guess he was mad somebody else was getting it.

The way Redd looked in my eyes haunted me. He begged silently, this wasn't the Redd I knew. The feeling of not being able to rescue the one u love is grounds for suicide. I wanted to die, I didn't give a fuck how nobody felt afterward. I wanted to kill that big black muthafucka and then kill myself and I couldn't stop crying, I had never hurt that way before. My heartbeat, he was my child's father, I would do anything for him. I hated him because I loved him. I think the fact that we were there together had made it easier and I knew Boogie was taken care of. My sister Kerri had him and I hadn't wanted anything from her except hold him down, I thought I could depend on her though, she did more than I expected. Kind of like she realized one day the shit I was in was really serious. She could lose me.

I really missed my son though, and I still missed his Daddy, now I missed him even more. I wanted to kill everything walking.

I was released from the infirmary, and everybody knew.

Shameka walked up to me on the rec yard and began to chop it up out of nowhere, I found it amusing...this bitch had always been my known rival on the streets, we even had Redd's real names and nicknames tattooed on our bodies visibly, our sons, 2 were months apart. I figured she wanted to know if it was true.

"Damn, the way u found out was kinda fucked up," She said.

What the fuck did she mean?

"Bitch we don't rock like that...how the fuck u just gone walk up on me like this." I said. The tension had my fists balled up, she took a step back. That bitch had been looking screw faced on the street but now she wanted to be friendly? I knew she was still mad I had took her man, that bitch was obsessed with me, and my social network accounts. He had to still be fucking her was what I summed it all up to be.

"Say Chic, I'm just tryna tell u what's real...that nigga a whole bitch when he in here," she said. "When I found out I just, I wanted to kill that muthafucka. I had just had Malik, and I didn't know what the fuck to do. That nigga showed up at my house looking for Redd, he begged me not to say nothing and said he was rich. I had to put him out, he couldn't stay and I knew who the nigga was. Real shit though, I'm glad u finally found out."

I couldn't say shit. I was about to kill that lying ass bitch, right then on that rec yard. Bitch, u expect me to believe my nigga got down like that, on the street? If u tell me that lie to my face u will tell all these other bitches the same shit. I ran straight into that bitch, it took two guards to get me off of that hurtful hoe. How could she hate me so much, bitch he chose me! When they pulled me off of her, I had blacked out while beating her face in. I was numb, inside and out. I could feel one of my jaw teeth rolling in my mouth from her punching me upward from the ground. I wanted to be locked down, I was already locked up. I had so much rage inside of me...and the only thing I had to look forward to was the attorney Kerri had retained. I had fucked up. I would not be able to call Boogie Sunday after church.

A one window ass cell, a cup, a spoon, and a Bible...no mattress.

I would be in there until Jesus came back as the judge ordered. It was so cold, the metal would instantly give me chills. I would sit on the concrete floor as water bugs would crawl by, I wondered how they exited and entered.

I'd lay on the top bunk and look out of the window at night at the stars. I could see the men's compounds behind the dorm I was housed in. At night something white would move across the dark windows. I realized they were writing back and forth to the women with tissue. I could read their desperate sexual advances, they wanted to see titties and ass. One night I wrapped some tissue around my hand, made a glove and spelled R-E-D-D on the window. At first I didn't get a response. Then finally some one spelled W-H-O?

R-E-D-D I spelled again. I watched as he wrote OK. Someone else began to write momentarily.

R-E-D-D W-H-O?

B-R-A-N-D-O-N-L-E-W-I-S--- I spelled.

L-O-L Someone spelled back. I sat up on my knees on the hard bunk with tears streaming down my cheeks. I missed him I didn't give a fuck; I needed him. I loved him in my bones, the nigga I seen at the courthouse was not the Redd I was in love with. I really needed him and he needed me. What was I supposed to do? Throw away what we had just like that? What had he done, had he killed Terrell? I still had his back but I just needed to know.

The attorney came one morning and said my next court date was 8 months away. The feeling of no hope consumed me. I became weak, instantly. The thought of waking up in that place that many more days, made me want to cut out my own heart, it ached so bad.

He then told me how the case was progressing but it was at a standstill because the videos and the phone records had disappeared.

"I know u haven't been completely honest with me, I cant help u until u come clean. Were u involved with Officer Jermaine Hathaway? He was a person of interest in an ongoing case."

No, I had been involved with Terrell and he didn't have a last name. He was a damn good undercover, or was he? Something happened and I needed to know what.

Then one day, the letter came. I hadn't recognized the handwriting on the envelope, but I recognized the handwriting on the letter. It was Redd's.

I was so happy at that moment, I had been locked down almost 60 days. I had lost over 50 pounds, and my hair had completely fallen out. I had wanted to close my eyes to never open them again. I was losing my mind. At night I wrote his name constantly on the window. "Baby I'm sorry" was how the letter began.