Thirty minutes passed, and the guard eventually came to take my dad to the back. We got a lot done in the little time that wehad. The talk that Sevyn had with him really did help in boosting his confidence, along with getting him to see how serious this was. I’m not sure if my dad thought that he was out of the hot seat after Sevyn had gotten on him, but Sevyn came at him again, setting the scene of a mock parole hearing, wanting to hear my dad pour out his heart, speak on the way he had changed, and why he felt he deserved to go home.
I guess that part was a test just to see if my dad was even serious about it, and for Sevyn to know if he was wasting his time or not. The second time, my dad did much better, but we all concluded that it would work in his favor if he wrote his letter, allowed it to come from the heart, so that he could present it when that day came.
Once we got through that, that’s when we all sat at the table, and Sevyn put it all out on the line about my dad’s original case that had him in prison in the first place. We know that the crime my dad was in prison for was murder. I don’t know if my dad really killed someone or not. He claimed that he didn’t, but at the same time, he wouldn’t say who pulled the trigger. According to him, he didn’t know.
That was one of the things that my mom was so mad about with him for years because there’s this piece of her that felt like he knew who pulled the trigger, but he was living with that mindset of not wanting to snitch on one of his friends that was with him that night. Today was the first time I actually heard my dad swear and put it on me that he wasn’t responsible for it.
We got through that part, and then we moved on to the petty crimes that he did while he was locked up. Sevyn only brought it up because he knew that that was something that would get used against him at is hearing, but my dad was ready to take full responsibility for that.
I really felt like a good game plan was in motion, and I couldn’t prove it right now, but something told me that my daddy was coming home.
I hugged him tightly just as I did any other time when our visits were over, but this time I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry because I knew these circumstances wouldn’t be for much longer. My mom hugged him as well, and he was eventually taken away from us.
Sevyn walked with my mom and I out of the room, and eventually out of the building. He parked in the same lot as us, so we took the bus back to the parking lot, where he talked about the case with us the entire ride.
Once we were off, and getting off at our stop, both my mom and I thanked Sevyn for taking on my dad’s case, but of course, he let us know that a thank you wasn’t needed.
From there, we were back in the car, and the only thing that was left to do was gas up my car, stop and grab something to eat, and head back home.
6:18 P.M.
I was pushing the shopping cart, leaving out of Whole Foods. The cart was filled with groceries that I was getting ready to take back to Tank’s house. By the time that I got to his house, it would leave me with enough time to get started on dinner, so that it could be ready for him once he walked through the door, or at least almost finished.
He’s been at his shop all day, working, and handling business. I thought that he would let me get out of cooking tonight, since I had been on the road all day, going to see my dad, and then coming back, but that man called me, just to make sure that I’d safely made it back home, and once it was revealed to him that I was, he was quick with letting me know what he wanted for dinner. It was Tuesday, and this man was asking for fried chicken, white rice, cabbage, and cornbread. Any otherman from my past that I was dealing with, I would have probably told them to kiss my ass, and that I wasn’t cooking all of that, but here I was, leaving the grocery store with everything that I was going to need to make his dinner tonight.
I made it to my car, and I used my key to pop the trunk. As I was adding things into the trunk, a nice Mercedes C class pulled up next to me. The windows were tinted dark, so it wasn’t like you could glance inside and see who it was. Not that I needed to see who it was, but naturally, whenever someone pulled up next to me, I would always look. The music that was coming from the car was loud. You could hear the base coming from outside the car.
I finished loading the groceries into the back of the car, and I was one of those shoppers that liked to put the cart back where it belonged, so that’s what I did.
I pushed the cart back along with the rest of the carts, and as I was walking back, that’s when the Mercedes driver’s side door opened. It was a male figure. He looked at me, and for a second, I tilted my head, trying to see where I might know him from because his face looked a bit familiar. I hated that I was coming up empty, and I didn’t know who he was because I felt like I was supposed to know.
When he reached his hand up, so that he could adjust the fitted cap that was on his head, that’s when the sleeve of the Nike sweater that he was wearing rose a little bit, and I saw the tattoo that was on his wrist. It would be damn near impossible to forget that fire flame tattoo because I remember seeing it on the video that was shown to me. Those hands had touched and killed my dog.
Now that I had a better view of his face, I knew that it was him, so I took off towards him, coming from the other aisle in the parking lot.
It's almost as if he knew that it was me because he moved quickly getting back into the car, and the second he got inside, I tried to pull onto the handle, but I was too slow because he’d already locked the doors.
“Open the door. Open the fuckin door,” I screamed like a mad woman, pulling on the handle, thinking that that would help.
I could hear the loud roar from him starting the car, and not caring that I was standing right here, he started backing the car up. If I didn’t move out of the way, he would have ran my ass over. Pissed, I was beating on the back of his car, as he pulled out, screaming for him to open the door.
As he was driving away, I made a mental note of his tag number, and I rushed to get to my car, so that I could save it to my notes.
The second I was in the car, I screamed, kicked, and had a whole melt down because for the first time since my dog was taken, and killed, I finally had a face on the person that had done it. I was so close, but I allowed him to get away. I had no idea who that man was. I’ve never seen him before in my life.
I just wanted to find out who made him do it. If he didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him, then why the fuck would he kill my dog? Those were the questions that I needed answers to.
Chapter 13
Tavion ‘Tank’ Briggs
Crash Out
“You knew your dad was locked up?” was the first thing my mom asked me the second I answered her call.
It was going on eight at night, and I was pulling through the gates of my community. I was tired as fuck. I was at one of my smoke shops since eight this morning because I wanted to be there for the inventory shipment. All kinds of shit came this morning from vapes, CBD oils, and new hookah flavors. That shit was a fuckin headache because something happened during the shipment where a lot of the boxes were mislabeled, and we were even short on a lot of things. With that, I wanted to be there to personally sort it out, since this was my brand, and I liked to be hands on with the entire process.
As if that shit wasn’t enough, I got into it with one of my vendors in China. I had been doing business with them for a couple of years. He was the vendor that I would go through for anything glass. So, anything from the glass pipes, hookah glass bases, and shit like that. All of a sudden, they were going up on their prices, which I could accept because I understood that with any business, prices were going to change. I couldn’t accept feeling like I was being hustled. It felt like I was back in thestreets again, dealing with a supplier that was trying to hustle me. After making a few threats to find another vendor, we finally got shit right.
