Pawn (The Pawn Duet #2) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,40

up at the ceiling. “They can be pretty mean and rough to the inmates who deserve it, and I sure fucking deserved it. She used to kick the shit out of me almost daily, but it wasn’t nothing I didn’t have coming to me. One day, I was bleeding and broken and bruised, and I was still giving her attitude, still looking for more punishment when she put her nightstick away and offered me a deal. I go to a meeting. One of those groups that help people get out of gangs and shit. Once a week. I didn’t have to participate, and I didn’t have to believe in the shit. I just had to go, and the beatings would stop, and she would let me say whatever the fuck I wanted to say to her.”

“So, you took the deal?”

He turns his head toward me. “I would have been a fool not to, but she got one over on me. I went to the first meeting, sat in the back, and tuned out. Well, until she walked in and took the podium.”

“What did she say?”

There’s a distant look in his eyes as he recalls the memory. “She started to explain the kind of shit she faced every day. Not just for being black but also for being law enforcement. She explained how her little brother was killed when he knocked on a door asking for help with his broke down car, and how her other brother was killed because he joined a gang that fed him lies about belonging when he was expendable to them. A pawn to protect the king. How he was brainwashed. How much it hurt her and how much she hated him when all he needed was to reach out to her. How other black people from her community, including members of her own family, won’t speak to her because she’s a Corrections Officer and a lot of them distrust anyone in law enforcement.” He sighs. “She blamed herself for her brother’s death, and the reason she chose her line of work was to make a difference in the system. To promote change. We couldn’t be more different but I recognized a lot in her story as my own.” He smiles from ear to ear. “She’s the bravest fucking person I’ve ever met. Strong right hook, too.” He rubs his jaw at the memory.

“And that’s what did it? That’s what made you change?” I ask, curiously.

He sits back up. “Nobody can make you change, but she’s the one who made me begin to think twice about my life. I realized I was disobeying her and practically begging for daily beatings because I liked her attention, you know, in a perverted kind of way. I didn’t realize I actually liked her. Never thought we’d be able to relate…until we did. I don’t just like her.” He laughs at the absurdity of it all. “I fucking love her, Mickey.”

“I’m…really proud of you, Percy.”

“Trust me, the shock you’re feeling is nowhere near the shock I was feeling.” He laughs, then looks at me. “What, the doctor ain’t got shit else to say? None of them fancy words of yours floating around in that big brain right now? Thought you’d at least give me some with more syllables than I have fingers. I admit, I’m kind of disappointed.”

“Watch it. Maybe, one day you and…”

“Benita. It means blessed,” he laments.

“Well, maybe one day we will live in a post Fourth Reich world. One where you and Benita will live in a house, and I’ll live in one nearby. We will be neighbors. I’ll come over on Sundays for dinner,” I say, imagining what that kind of life would look like.

“It’s a nice thought. You and I both know it’s not likely, but it is a nice thought…but why aren’t we coming over to your place for dinner?”

“It’s Sunday, my day off. I don’t want to cook,” I joke.

Percy lights another cigarette with the burning end of the butt in his hand. “It’s a deal, but why aren’t you including Pike in this? Don’t you mean you and Pike’s house?”

I grow quiet as the sadness takes over. “No, Pike has a life. A good one. My shit is a heavy weight to carry, and I’m not the easiest person in the world. He’d be…”

“Don’t you dare say he’d be better off without you because that ain’t true. No one would be better off without you, Dr. Michaela Lovejoy.”

“I guess only time will