Entry# 14: The Beginning of the Second Grave

Introducing the inner thoughts of Terry

The whole time while I was on the bus, I kept asking myself, how did I get here?  I continued to stare out of the window while my son slept with his head in my lap.  I gently rubbed his back while I was deep in thought.  I kept replaying the hellish night over and over in my head.  I didn't know what to be more upset about; the fact that Geoffrey cheated on me or the fact that these people now held my freedom in their hands.  Here I was not even thirty years old and I didn't have a dime to my name with just a few of my belongings while being shipped home to my mother.  Shit, I didn't even have a cell phone on me.  These people stripped me of everything.

I guess in a way I had no choice but to chalk it up to karma.  Whoever said it was a bitch sure knew what they were talking about.  Never in a million years did I imagine getting caught never mind my life turning out like this.  The only good thing at the time was that staying with my mom would have bought me some time to come up with a game plan.  Once I was able to get situated, I could figure out how Geoffrey and I could move forward.  I loved him too much to let him go but at the same time I hated him for lying to me and sleeping with those women.  That was never a part of the plan. 

I started thinking about how long Geoffrey and I had pulled this scam.  For a little over two years we have were living off of desperate women, so did that mean that Geoffrey was cheating on me for two years?  But then again, in a way, I guess that I had given him permission to cheat.  I fought back the tears that were trying to flood my eyes as I thought back to all of the nights that he did not come home.  My naive ass never once thought that he was taking his role in these women's lives to an intimate level.   I felt the rise of anger creeping up in my chest.  I wanted to smash my fist through the bus window.  Instead, I balled my hands up into a fist and dug my nails into the palm of my hand and bit my lip to stop the tears from coming. 

I felt my son stirring in my lap.  I shifted his body so that we were a little more comfortable.  For the sake of my son, I needed to come up with a plan to make some money to support him.    But before I could even do that, I needed to come up with a story to explain to my mother why we were suddenly coming to her house.  It wasn't as if she lived down the street.  The best that I could come up with under the stress that I was feeling was to say that Geoffrey and I got into a fight and I needed some time away from him.  It seemed to make sense at the time.  What else could I have possibly said?  It's not like I could start the conversation by saying, "Hi Mama! Your daughter is a scam artist and got caught."  Mama was already skeptical of Geoffrey.  She never did care for him.  She always expressed that he was never going to amount to much and felt that he was going to do nothing but bring me down.   Clearly she was right because I wouldn't be in the position I was in if I had listened to her in the first place.

When I had decided to leave home at the age of eighteen, I had told Mama that I no longer wanted to live in the country backwoods of Georgia.  I felt it in my bones that the city life was more my speed.  Mama had wanted me to go to college and become the first college graduate in the family.  Truth be told, school was never my cup of tea.  I barely passed high school because I was cutting class all of the time as I was more focused on boys than books.  I'm lucky that my fast ass didn't get pregnant or some kind of STI.  Mama felt that I was not ready for city life but what did she know?  She never left the state of Georgia.  I was young and of course I thought I knew a whole lot at the age of eighteen.  Hell, I felt that I was legally old enough to be on my own and her opinion didn't matter.

I ended up moving to Atlanta with two other girls from my hometown who felt the same way that I did, but eventually we all just grew apart.  One decided to go to college and the other one started her own business.  So over time, they no longer cared to party the way that I did.  Eventually, I started to feel alone until I met Geoffrey.  I thought that he was so suave and smooth and had that city flair.  It was what attracted me to him.  He said that he was an aspiring rap artist and he had big dreams of making it big.  Clearly he sold me on his dream because I married him.  Looking back, it was a struggle.  When the music thing didn't work out, Geoffrey would get odd jobs in order to get by.  I was working in the housekeeping department at one of the downtown hotels and when I started to get tired of having to work for other people, I came up with the idea of starting my own cleaning business.   I had met quite a few of Atlanta's elite through small talk at the hotel and figured that I could make more money cleaning their houses.  Was it a glamorous job?  No but it was mine and no one could take it from me.  If I had known that allowing Geoffrey to talk me into scams with my clients' credit cards was going to lead me down this path, I probably would have thought twice.

At first, these scams were supposed to be a temporary fix until my cleaning business picked back up.  It just eventually became a lifestyle and I was convinced that we really weren't doing much harm so I figured that if it wasn't broke, why bother to fix it?  Besides, Geoffrey and I agreed that for the sake of our son, he would take the heat if we were to get caught.  After all, he was used to it.  By the time I learned  about his long ass rap sheet, I was so deep in love there was no way to dig back out.

I looked down at my son and realized that in the midst of this madness, I had a beautiful blessing.  That brief moment of joy disappeared quickly as I realized that I had truly hit rock bottom.   I asked myself, where do I go from here? 

I rubbed my temples as the bus pulled into bus station.  As I gathered my things, I gently woke my son up and told him that it was time to get off of the bus.  I wondered how I was going to get to my mother's house without any money as we stepped off the bus.  My son suddenly let go of my hand and yelled, "Grandma!" as he ran towards her.  My stomach dropped.  How did she know that we were coming?  My mouth suddenly became dry.  There was no way my story was going to hold up now.  It was clear she knew something but I didn't know what.

"Hi, hi Mama," I stammered.  The look that she had on her face was not happiness to see me.  She turned back to my son and said, "Let's go to the car."

Once I got my duffel bag off of the bus, I followed the two of them and was racking my brain.  I watched as Mama placed Junior in the back and secured him in his seat belt.  As she closed the car door she turned to me and asked, "Why in the hell did I receive a phone call instructing me to pick you up here?  And where is your cell phone?  I have been calling you all morning.  I have been worried sick.  What is going on Terry?"

My head started spinning.  All of these questions she was throwing at me and I didn't know how to answer them.  It was only a matter of time before I had to tell her the truth.  I didn't want to.  I already had been such a disappointment to my mother by marrying Geoffrey.  I felt the palm of my hands getting sweaty as I looked at my mother waiting for me to answer her.  The next thing I knew, I dropped my bag and began vomiting.  I don't know what caused it.  Maybe it was my nerves, but at least it bought me some time.

Mama rushed to my side and asked me if I was okay.  I simply nodded my head as I was still at a loss for words.  "Let me see if they have a vending machine inside so I can get you some ginger ale," she said as she helped me into the car.  She then removed a bottle of water from out of the car trunk and handed it to me.

"Here," she said.  "Rinse your mouth out."

I did as I was told and then laid my head against the seat and closed the car door.  I tried to steady my breathing as my heart was racing.  I didn't know what to do in that moment.  It wasn't like I could run away.  I had nowhere else to go.

My mother came back into the car and handed me a can of ginger ale.  I popped the can open and began sipping slowly. 

"Now are you going to tell me what is going on?"  She asked.

"Mama, can we talk about this when we get to the house?  I am not feeling well right now."

She acted as if she didn't hear me.  "Where is Geoffrey and who was the person that called me?"

I decided to push forward with my story.  "It was a friend Mama.  I had to get out of the house.  Geoffrey and I got into a really bad argument,"  I said as I removed my shades.  My mother slammed on the brakes.

"What in the hell happened to your face?  Did Geoffrey hit you?  Girl, I will kill him if he laid his hands on you!"

I forgot about the bruises on my face.

"Mama it is not as bad as it looks."

"Child you are not answering me and it sounds like you are defending the bastard," she responded.

At this point, I felt that letting Mama believe that Geoffrey hit me was better than me telling her the kind of trouble I really was in.  So I continued with my lie.

"I had a friend come and get me and I asked him to call you because I left my cell phone at the house.

Junior and I just need to stay with you for a few days until I sort some things out.  Okay Mama?"

Mama remained silent as she drove.  About ten minutes later, she pulled into her driveway.  I was dying to get inside of the house to take a hot shower.  I wanted to wash last night away.  I climbed out of the car and went into the back seat to let Junior out.  It was clear that I was going to have to try to sneak a call to Geoffrey's cell phone.  He probably had his taken too but I was worried as to his whereabouts.  Despite the warnings that I received from those people, I needed to know that he was okay.

I walked into the house and I heard the house phone ringing.  I headed upstairs to my old bedroom when my mother called my name and asked me to come back downstairs.  I headed to the kitchen and saw that my mother was gripping the telephone receiver so hard that her knuckles were practically white.  I watched her as her eyes grew larger and she took a deep breath and then quietly hung up the phone. 

"Start talking," she demanded.

"Mama, I.." She cut me off.

"Terry, that phone call that I just got informed me that Geoffrey was shot dead.  Please tell me that you did not kill him."

As strange as it was at the time,  I couldn't help but laugh. 

"Girl, this here ain't nothing to laugh about.  Your husband is dead."

I looked at my mother and said, "Mama, someone is playing a prank on you."

"Terry that was the Atlanta Police Department.  Apparently they were trying to contact you on your cell phone.  Geoffrey was shot dead.  Did you kill him?"

The look on my mother's face indicated that she was dead serious.  The room started spinning and I felt as if I was going to vomit again.   I don't remember exactly what happened next.  The only thing that I remember thinking was that revenge was mine right before the room went black and I passed out.

©All original content copyright Kim M. Washington, 2014