No power on heaven or earth could dissuade me. No angel, no demon could keep me from

my revenge.

-Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

PROLOGUE

onald Albert Jones was raised in Detroit at a time when black folk were

starting to figure out who they where. It was the fifties and sixties; civil tension was in the air. Black folk were tired of being maids, butlers, sharecroppers, and bowing down to men who put their pants on the same way everyone else did.

Don was sitting in the passenger’s seat of his father’s new 1954 sunshine-orange Fleetwood when Sweet Peter, a rival pimp from the Westside, drove up beside them and, without a word, stuck his arm out the window and fired three shots into the Fleetwood.

Don was a sixteen-year-old boy; the most important thing on his mind was chasing after girls at Washington High. At least that was the case until he sat in his father’s ride wearing his daddy’s blood and brain matter.

*****

Zenobia’s Pool Hall was the spot to be on a Thursday night--where players

came to hang-out, drink, and gamble. From the outside, Zenobia’s looked like an old abandoned warehouse. The front entrance had been boarded up long ago, and all the windows were spray painted black.

It was still daylight when Don limped down the narrow alley leading to the pool hall’s back door entrance.

“Damn, Youngblood, heard about Smooth,” an older plain looking brotha leaving the pool hall said, as he approached Don. “Me and your old man go way back, Lord knows he was a good nigga.”

Don took off his shades, and nodded. Although, his pops was gunned down less than four hours ago on the Eastside, Don wasn’t surprised that word had already spread to the Westside. Smooth, the street name his daddy went by, was one of the best dressed and smoothest talking hustlers on the Eastside.

Seeing that Don, wasn’t in the mood to talk, the old man kept walking. Suddenly an idea hit Don. “Say, old man,” Don called out. The old man turned around. “Let me put a bug in your ear,” Don said, signaling the man to come to him.

A minute later a deal had been struck. It cost Don a C-note of his daddy’s money, but he figured it would be worth it.

D

A couple hours later, the hot July Detroit sun was replaced by a clear blue-black night sky. The kings of Detroit’s black underground began filing their way down the alley and up the loading dock stairs to enter the pool hall.

The old man must’ve been relieved. Sweet Peter’s loud high-pitched voice saved him from having to tap on the 55 gallon rusted-out barrel, he was leaned up against.

As Sweet Peter walked up the last step, Don stood up. Surprised as anyone, the old mans eyes about popped out of his head. “Shit,” someone said, before Don fired two shots from the double barreled

sawed off, sending Sweet Peter flying off the stairs onto the cool concrete ground.

Don climbed out of the barrel jumped off the loading dock, and quickly walked over to where Sweet Peter was gasping for air and spitting up blood.

Don pulled down his pants and pissed in Sweet Peters face, before strapping the sawed-off back to his leg. Without a word, Don pulled up his pants and limped away.

It was the act of what was done to his father and what Don had done in retribution that gave him the resolve to make a vow to run the streets, instead of the streets running him.

He tried his hand at running women. It was too much trouble, and since he thought of himself as a romantic; pimping just wasn’t his scene, even though like his father, he possessed one of the sugary smoothest mouthpieces in the Motor City. He dibbled and dabbled with selling a little heroin and weed. But however, he didn’t have the patience to be a heroin dealer.

A couple years later, early one breezy spring morning, Don packed a bag and went to the Greyhound bus station. He’d decided it was time to move on. Detroit was just too fast, too cut-throat. He didn’t have any destination, so he decided to get a ticket for the next bus heading south.

It was a cool April night when Don got off the Greyhound in downtown Atlanta. He had a tattered brown suitcase in one hand and the wind in the other. The shiny gray, sharkskin suit he took off a dead man in a casket at Grundy’s Funeral Home, back in Detroit, covered his coal black skin. The slicked-back conk hairdo Don wore rivaled that of Nat King Cole’s. The man was sharper than a new straight razor.

He looked like chocolate money as he stood frozen in the middle of the street like a misplaced light post. His eyes were glued to the rear end of this healthy, big butt red-bone getting out of a fairly new Buick. A minute later a speeding

oncoming car brought him back to reality. In no time he was on the sidewalk, one hand in his pocket and one on his suitcase. He broke out into a cool double-step-hop-jog to catch up to the voluptuous red satin-dress-wearing, big-legged, large-breasted, heart-bootied, cherub-faced, red-haired goddess who’d almost cost him his life a few moments ago.

“Must be butter cause skin ain’t that smooth.” Massaging the back of her hand, leaning at an angle, licking his brown weed, stained lips as if she were a pork chop and he a hungry fat man, he continued, “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Detroit Don. That is the Detroit Don, the one, the only, in ten dimensions, live and uncensored. You may have heard of me; now you see me; soon you’ll want me; later you’ll need me. Baby, babygirl, call me Don for shawt not for naught.” He extended his manicured ringless hand, showing all thirty-two of his baking-soda whites, and they were white, despite all the refer he smoked. He continued when her hand was in his.

“I am fresh off the Greyhound as you can ascertain. I am a friendless man in your fair city. Would you please be so kind as to let a lonely brother escort you to lunch?” He pointed a finger in the air, “That is, after I extricate myself from these tired clothes, bathe, and refurbish myself in some more fitting attriments and locate a boarding house. Miss?”

Oh yeah, Don was a man of many words, and sometimes he made up words that sounded like they could have been real.

Kat smiled as she astutely listened to Don’s tired, rambling tirade. “I’m Katrice Scott, but my friends call me Kat. I might have a spare room for

you if you want work.” She had one hand on her hip as she looked him up and down. “A pretty Black man like yourself might do me just fine,” she said. “Well, are you coming or not?” she asked while hip-dancing back to her car.

It didn’t take long for Don to lose control of the situation. Hell, he didn’t even ask what kind of job. He would find out soon enough. Later that night, Don started work as an enforcer for the biggest cathouse on the Eastside. Katrice Scott was nine years older than him. She was into everything from dope to numbers to vice. Don was more than eager to learn and learning the game came easy. Don didn’t use nor drink; his only problems were the kitty-kats on the sweet, young nubile kittens that were ripe for the plucking. Kat cured his addiction--at least for a while.

Whenever he went to shave, painful memories assaulted his consciousness. Memories of that horrible morning when Kat caught him reviewing the quality of the services that her girls provided. There would always be a mark at the top of

his neck where Kat tried to slit his throat with a four-inch stainless steel, pearl-handled switchblade. I mean she worked that blade like a Ginsu chef and would have had perfect aim if it weren’t for one of her girls grabbing her arm.

The girls did not fear Kat’s wrath. They knew Kat would never turn on them in favor of a man. One of Kat’s rules to live by: Don’t bite the hand that makes you money, but when that hand stops putting money in yours, then bite the shit out of it.

In fear of losing his cash cow, Don decided to get some real life insurance. He married Kat two weeks later. Everything was fine for the next five years, then Kat popped up pregnant.

Kat was a completely different woman while she was pregnant. She became immersed in books. The more she read, the more she started to think that the games she was playing were the wrong games, and she didn’t want her child exposed to the type of lifestyle she and Don had grown accustomed to. Kat was being enriched by the likes of Dubois, Hughes, Hurston, Barnett, Ellison, and many more. Her mentality had been transformed in such a short time that Don had no idea what the heck was going down. He didn’t know if she was getting religion on him, squaring up, or coming up with a new scheme. And frankly he didn’t care.

The more Kat read, the further Don fled. No longer just Kat’s man, he’d established his own identity, had grown into a seasoned hustler, and was known around town as a mover and shaker. A man who could make anything happen--for the right price. But, like most young men, money and the poo-nanny was his kryptonite.

Before the baby came, Kat closed the cathouse; her heart just wasn’t in it. She even turned to the church and, worst of all, she blew up like a sumo wrestler on steroids. Mind you, she was never small. But she was as big as a house now. I mean a mansion. And she got bigger by the bon-bon.

After the birth of their daughter, La-Shae, Don started to stay in the streets more and more. He hustled stolen goods that he took off trucks at night and sold weed by day. The girlfriends he acquired on the side, as well as his other activities, helped to support Kat and La-Shae.

One day in ‘68, while cat-daddy strolling down the block, a man with a voice almost as smooth as Don’s drew him into the local record store. David Ruffin was talkin’ bout having sunshine on a cloudy day, being cold outside in the month of May. And then, he made a smooth transition from the weather to his girl. You already know Don had a weakness for big, pretty, shapely redbone

women. He called them fat-fine. Sure enough, one was behind the register, lip-synching along with the vinyl on the record player.

She was one of those college girls. You know, bourgeoisefied and thangs. She wouldn’t give Don the time of day…at least not at first. He slowly wore her down. He brought her roses, compliments of Theresa Grant, May 18, 1932--June 3, 1968--that’s what the headstone read at Crown cemetery. He even brought her the good Spumante wine, fresh off the truck he’d helped hi-jack. He talked a local band into playing in front of the store while he crooned his own rendition of My Girl. For some reason, both times the band had played, Berry Gordy didn’t show as Don had promised he would.

When Don sang, it was all over. The man was more a poet than a singer. He made words dance. They came to life when they were released from his baritone voice. He invented words like ‘beautifical’ and ‘organasmic’ and brought them to life. They were his creations and they rolled off his tongue with the style and grace of a ballerina walking a tightrope.

Jill Andrews, music major at Marion Anderson School of Performing Arts, had never heard anything like the velvety smooth, iron-piped, silk-tongued voice. She was hooked.

A year had passed. “Don, I ain’t gon’ make it,” Jill screamed from the back seat of Don’s new

Fleetwood. “Baby, calm down, we’ll be at the hospital in less than ten minutes,” Don

said, as he sped through the streets of Atlanta. “The baby’s coming. Oh sweet Jesus,” Jill screamed as she stuck her nails

into Don’s arm. “Woman?” Don shouted. The car swerved. Don got control of the wheel as he

barely missed hitting a garbage truck in the next lane. Jill still had her nails in Don’s arm minutes later as he headed towards the

emergency room double doors. “The baby, damn you Don, ahhhhh,” Jill cursed and screamed. Out of nowhere a black car jumped the curb, and drove through the flower

bed at the Emergency room entrance. Don slammed on his brakes, but not before the black car knocked the left head light off the Cadi.

“You son of a, I’ll be damned,” Don shouted as he jumped out of his car and walked towards the black car.

“Brother man, I’m sorry my wife is having my…” “Do I look like your brother, cracka’.”

The man could see the rage in Don’s eyes. “You could a killed us fool.” The man nodded. “I know.” The man said, while reaching into his suit jacket

pocket.” “Don, no,” Jill shouted, right before Don pulled out his switchblade. “Here’s my card. Whatever the damage I’ll pay. Forgive me. Truly, I am

sorry, the man said as he got up and fled into the hospital. “Dalton Parker, Attorney at Law,” Don read aloud as he rushed to the

passenger side of his Fleetwood.

*****

AN HOUR EARLIER “Law offices of Brown-ah-low, St-Stone and ah-ah-Associates. May I help

you?” The new intern secretary stuttered. “Dalton Parker, please. Emergency,” Mary grunted. “Oh, hi, Mrs.-Mrs. Parker. Hold on one second.” Covering the phone with her

hand, still spread eagle, and bent over the reception desk, she held the phone up, and mouthed the words, “It’s your wife.”

The new intern had not been at the firm a good week before Dalton was taking advantage of the benefits her body had to offer.

She was a college student trying to earn extra credit hours anyway she could. Betty was two ticks from five feet, a slimmy with two mountainous, prickly, ripe melons up top and an ironing board back.

Dalton Parker towered over her at six two, two hundred plus pounds. Betty handed him the phone and resumed her former position, bent over Dalton’s desk with nothing but some cheap red heels on. Dalton wiped the sweat pouring from his face onto Betty’s behind before grabbing the phone.

“Honey, Me and Gina were in Atlanta doing some last minute baby shopping, when my water broke. We’re on our way to Crawford Long . Don’t worry Dr. Monroe is on his way from Rome.”

“I’ll, uh-uh-oh-oh, um, me-meet you there,” Dalton stuttered as he gave the phone back to Betty, then he and his wife contracted at the same time--one in pain, one in pleasure.

*****

Marionette Fenton was the daughter of Douglas G. Fenton, sole owner of

Fenton Industries. Dalton Parker and Marionette Elizabeth Fenton’s marriage was more so a business merger, arranged by their fathers. It was a repositioning of strength, wealth, and power. Dalton was made to understand this early on in the courtship. After seeing the big picture through his father’s eyes, he became a willing co-conspirator.

Mary was in love. She had no idea of what had been arranged. Dalton, like his father, was a planner, a schemer, and an opportunist. Mary

was opportunity manifest in the form of a woman. She was but one of many conquests Dalton would conquer. Nothing or no one would stand in his way. If an obstacle dared venture into his path he would not walk around nor step over it. He’d stomp all over it.

*****

Dalton never liked to leave a job unfinished, and Betty was no exception.

Such a perfect 180 degree angle, bent over his desk. Her legs forming a pyramid as her heeled feet touched the white tiled office floor. His wife of only one year was having their first child, but so what? So what if she was in pain? So what if she was scared? Dalton would be there. After he came, then he would come--that is, to the hospital.

CHAPTER ONE

lbert Coltrane Jones, I am so sick and tired of you lying and tearing up shit, I don't know what to do," His mother scolded while shaking him like a set of dice. Coltrane knew he was in deep doo-doo. If his mother cried when he messed up that meant it was bad, real bad. As usual he made a feeble attempt to plead his case.

“Momma, I ain’t broke no--” “You ain’t what?” she screamed. Why did she have to scream? She done gone and scared the tears right out of

his eyes. Trouble always seemed to follow Coltrane. He was the little boy who had to

put his hands on or in everything and ask questions later. Well, I take the little boy part back. He had never been little.

At ten years old, Coltrane was a 120 pound butterball. The kids in his hood nicknamed him Fat Albert. Yeah, you remember the cartoon. Every time he came around the kids playing kickball, football, or anything, it was always the same.

“Hey, hey, hey. It’s Faaaat Albert,” they’d sing. “Na, na, na. Gonna have a good time. Hey, hey, hey." Him beating somebody up usually followed the song. It seemed like them dummies would have caught on. They should have gotten the message. Call him names, you get beat up. Simple.

Fighting was just one reason from a never-ending list of why his mother’s strong arms were so weary from beating his behind. Somebody's momma was always complaining about him picking on his or her child. Did anybody care that he was usually the brunt of some cruel, unthinking kid’s jokes?

Food and Coltrane--especially sweets--had a serious, long-standing love affair. If it is true that sweets make kids hyper, Coltrane should’ve OD'd several times. He was always on the go, running his mouth, breaking the sound barrier trying to talk some kid out of a buck just to feed his sugar habit. Pretty soon, he just started walking about a mile up the street to the Village Pantry corner market. Once inside he’d look left, look right. Next thing you know, one of those white iced Hostess honey buns or white cream-filled, soft yellow Hostess Twinkies found their way into the clutches of his Fruit of the Looms.

He got caught so much, He was barred from the store. He was probably the reason that stores all over didn’t allow more than two kids in at a time without an adult.

“A

Getting caught meant the wrath of his mother with her switch or his belt. Jill didn’t have a bashful bone in her body. She wouldn't wait to get young Coltrane home. You know how some mothers say, “wait till I get you home” or “wait till I tell your daddy?” Nope, not Jill Jones. The whipping started in the store and went on while she was driving home, one hand on the wheel, both eyes on the road, and one terribly aimed hand flailing away on a squirming and crying Coltrane. The whole time she'd be asking him the same questions: “Why-do-you-make-me-do-this-to-you? When-are-you-going-to-learn?”

Unfortunately, Coltrane grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, a time when beating your child's behind didn’t constitute as child abuse.

Now, school was another thing. Coltrane was smart, but he always had to be the center of attention. It wasn't the teacher's class when he was a student in it. It was his class, or so he thought. He came up with all types of nut-ball antics to make kids laugh or cry. Of course, in fear of his mother's switch, he practiced his buffoonery behind the teacher's back. But it was always just a matter of time before he got caught. And when he did, it meant you know what, from you know who.

You could catch him red-handed, but because of the fear he had of his Momma’s wrath, he’d deny, deny, and then he’d deny some more.

“Nope, it wasn't me sitting at my desk flying the paper airplane that crashed into the back of April Martin’s hair,” he’d say.

“Wasn’t me who wrote the note that read: From Coltrane Jones to April Martin: April’ will you be my girlfriend, yes or no? Draw an X in the box and pass it back.”

Yeah, he was always recessing when it came to school. So, here we go again. Coltrane was inside the family’s two-bedroom house,

standing in the front room behind the couch his mother got after his Grandma Mabel died last year. Jill was on the other side. One hand on her hip, one pointing at the cracked picture window behind Coltrane.

Coltrane turned his head and looked out the front window with the big spider web crack in it. Even the branches on the big oak tree in the middle of the front yard stared back at him like he was guilty.

“Boy, you hear me talking to you!” His head jerked back in his mother’s direction. His bladder felt heavy. Sweat

formed on his forehead. “I didn’t break the window. Momma, I ain't, I mean, I'm not stupid. Miles

always lyin' on me. Why I'm gone shoot a BB gun in the house, when you done

already told us to, um, not be playin' in the house? Miles did it,” he cried while pointing an accusing finger at his younger, already crying brother, who stood a comfortable distance away from the long arms of their mother . He feared the distinct possibility of getting the backlash of a slap, or a whipping that was almost sure to follow.

“Momma, he a lie. Look, Mom,” he pointed a stubby finger at me before continuing, “He wa-he-he-was chasin' me wit'-wit’ that gun and he-he tried to kill me and he shoot at me and he missed, but-but the BB broke the window,” Miles tearfully stuttered, destroying all hopes of amnesty.

“I always get blamed for stuff. It ain't--I mean it isn’t right. You always take his side over mine.” Coltrane said.

Deep down inside Coltrane knew he was done. But he just couldn’t give up. Maybe a miracle would occur, he thought. So he kept talking.

But when his Mother dropped her head and stuck her hand out like a traffic guard it was over. Not even God could save his behind now.

Her teeth tightly grinding together, lips moving in an over exaggerated motion, eyes two seconds from popping out of her head, veins in her forehead breathing.

In a slow, deep, low guttural voice she said, "I do not believe you are going to sit up here, look me dead in my eyes, and lie straight through your teeth.”

And then, she drew the finger on him. Stabbing the air right in front of his face, she continued, “You are just like

your no- good, good-for-nothin’, trifling-behind daddy.” Fear had been replaced by sheer terror. Whenever she brought up his father’s

name when he was being scolded, that meant the belt or switch was not too far behind.

She raged on shaking her head, tears welling up in her eyes, "I can't do this anymore. I'm sending you to live with your daddy. You don't care about me. You don’t care about nobody but yourself. No matter how hard I try to make a better life for you and your brother, you’re never satisfied. You won't be satisfied until you give me a heart attack. Is that what you want? Do you hate me? Is life so bad living here?”

“Naw, Momma. I love you, Momma. I’m sorry, Ma--” “Shut up! Just shut-up. You always sorry. You the sorriest child…” She put

her head down and shook her head. “Don't ever tell me you're sorry again. Go to your room. Now.” She pointed.

He dropped his shoulders, tucked his chin on his chest, and started walking to his bedroom.

“On second thought, boy, look at me when I’m talking to you.” When he looked up, he almost jumped back. His mother’s hand was up in the

air and Coltrane was within her striking distance. “Take your fat behind outside and get me a switch.” All of a sudden he had to pee really, really bad. The air was thin. He was

breathing like a locomotive. What do I do? He wondered. What do I say? He couldn’t think.

“Don't make me have to come out there.” His mother shouted out the back door. “Stop all that cryin’, boy. I ain't gave you nothin’ ta cry for yet.”

Coltrane had never seen his momma this mad. Even his little brother was still crying, and he hadn’t done anything.

A few minutes later, after watering the yard with his tears, he came through the sliding glass patio door with a slim branch from the backyard.

His mother grabbed the branch. She twisted and turned it until it broke. Without a word, she made a beeline to the back door. Coltrane knew he was good as dead if he didn’t do something quick.

“No, Momma, I’m sorry. I mean, gimme one more chance,” he said as he took off in an all-out sprint, running around her. “I’ll get a good one this time.” He was already in the yard climbing the whipping tree before she had a chance to respond.

She snatched the switch from his hand before he made it through the back door.

Whooshhhhh. The switch snuck up on his unprotected behind. Just when he thought he had

no tears left. The pain he felt on the back of his legs was so excruciating, he dropped to the dining room floor, dang near killing his knees.

“You bet not break my damn door,” Momma hollered as she closed in, chasing him under the dining room table.

He screamed, he hollered, he begged. “I ain't never gone do it again, Momma. I promise. Momma, please. I promise I’ll be good.”

“I-know-you-will-be-good-cause-I'm-gone-beat-the-devil-out-of-you.” She paused just long enough to add, “Move your hands ‘fore I break ‘em off.”

He tried his best to sacrifice his hands, making them the savior for his behind and legs. She wasn’t having any of that. His momma was an equal opportunity butt-whipper. If his hands wanted in, they’d get whipped too.

After she was satisfied that the devil had been exorcised from his body, He painfully granddaddy-hobbled into the bed he shared with his pee-in–the-bed brother. His mind was reeling, thinking of all types of crazy stuff.

Like, why would Momma try to beat the devil out of me? Ain't nobody dumb enough to stay around for one of Momma’s beat-down whippings. Lucifer, Satan, the devil, the red-horned man with a pitchfork--whatever you want to call him--would’ve jumped out my body at the first sign of Momma and her switch. He would know that his pitchfork against Momma’s switch stood about as much chance as a butter knife at a sword fight.

And then, he began thinking about the new movie, The Exorcist. Everybody knows, at least black folk know, that the movie didn't need no

priests. All they needed was a big ol’ ham hock-cookin’ southern big momma from the hood there to whip that girl-devil with a whipping tree switch. Shoot, just have her to start hollerin’ ’bout whipping the devil out that little girl. That devil gon’ get somewhere with the quickness. If she threw up on my momma like she did those priests, it would have been no more little girl and no more devil.

He didn't realize that he’d drifted off to sleep until his mother came into the room the next morning.

“Wake up. Wake up, boy, and help me pack your stuff. Your daddy’s coming to get you in the morning.”

“Momma, give me one more chance, please. I'm really sorry. I love you, Momma. Don't make me go live with Daddy. I'll be good. I'll wash the dishes every night. I'll make sure the glasses don't have those white rings around them. Momma, please. I won't lie any more. I-I-I'll even be nice to Miles. Momma, please. Don't send me to live with Daddy.”

She just started grabbing his clothes, stuffing them in garbage bags. “It’s about time your daddy takes some responsibility. All your lives I’ve had to raise you and your brother without hardly any help from that tired, lazy, no-good, sorry excuse for a man. No. No. No.” she shook her head, “Not anymore, it's ‘bout time your daddy see what I have to go through every single day. I work eight hours a day and come home to chaos. He has more time. And he’s a man. He'll either have to get you ready for the world or make sure the world is ready for you.”

CHAPTER 2

oy, your Daddy’s here,” Jill shouted while Don stood outside in the cold morning air, banging on the door like the police.

“Coltrane, come here and open this damn door. I know you hear me knockin’,” Don shouted.

The curtains in the living room were wide open. Don saw Jill sitting on the couch smoking Benson and Hedges, deep in somebody else’s business between the pages of some romance novel.

He dared scream at her to open the door? Don was Polar bear-cool, and rattlesnake mean, but he wasn’t crazy. He knew better than to get Jill started. Where Don had a mean streak, Jill was just down right spiteful.

Coltrane opened the door, half-carrying, half-dragging a suitcase and a trash bag full of his stuff and a few of Miles’ things.

“Is that everything?” his father asked while helping Coltrane carry his bags to the car.

“Almost,” he said, running back inside. Jill put her cigarette out and placed the book she was reading on the coffee table before getting out of her chair.

With both hands on her hips, she said, “Albert Coltrane Jones, you just gon’ leave without telling yo Momma bye?”

With his head down he said, “I thought you was mad at me. I didn’t think you wanted me to say nothing to you.”

“Boy, if you don’t come here.” She stood up and opened her arms. He dove in them as if she were a swimming pool in the desert. “Momma, I’m

sorry. I don’t mean to keep messing up. Can I just get one more chance?” he begged just loud enough for her to hear. He didn’t want his daddy to think that he didn’t like him.

Jill grabbed Coltrane’s arms and stood him in front of her. “I love you more than you will ever know. You’ll always be my baby.”

Her eyes were glassy as she looked into her oldest sons’. “You have no idea how hard this is and how much this hurts me. Shaking her

head she continued, “No mother wants to send her child away. But I’m doing this because I love you, Albert Coltrane Jones.”

*****

“B

Three months later, Don and Coltrane were driving down the road in his work car, the ugliest dull-yellow, rust-bucket Volkswagen bug you’d ever seen. The last hubcap rolled right by them as they whipped into the Dog N’ Suds drive-in restaurant.

They were pulled up to one of those drive-in speaker things that never worked. Pretty girls in red and white skirts were taking orders. Just as he thought, the restaurant speaker ordering system was out again.

Don turned towards his son and pointed. “Boy, it’s time you started to learn how to make it in this world. You see, there are two kinds of people out there. There are puppets and there are masters. Now, me, I’m a master. Everywhere we go, I want you to start watching how folks treat your daddy. They respect me. And the ones that don’t are too scared to disrespect me. See this.” he pointed to the side of his head. “This is how I rule. This is how I get people to fall in line. This is how I get people to do what I want them to. My head and my mouth tag-team up on the smartest fools, and I always come out on top. If you want to be a master, you have to listen to what the puppets want. You have to learn how to know what the puppets think before they even thunk the thought. You have to make them think you’re helping them, but really they’re helping you,” he said while scoping out all the young girls bringing chilidogs and burgers out to waiting cars that sat outside the drive-in fast-food hot spot.

“You see that girl?” he pointed to the young woman on skates that had just brought them the onion rings and hamburgers, which he was dying to put his fat hands on.

“She’s a puppet. You know how I know?” He paused. “Boy, you listenin’ to me?”

“Yeah, Daddy.” “Well, look at me when I’m talking to you. Ain’t nobody gonna come and

take that food away from you,” he said. “Anytime you work for somebody else, you the puppet. They control you. Boy, let me understand you to something. Master means string puller. If you work for me, then I tell you what time to be at work and what to do. To make it on time, you have to wake up at a certain time. You have to plan your day around me. I pay you, so you can only live where what I pay you allows you to. So the puppet depends on the master,” he said, confusing Coltrane’s ten-and-a-half-year-old mind.

About thirty minutes later father and son pulled into a parking lot facing a big building downtown.

“Where we goin’?” Coltrane asked.

Don put the bug in park, and turned to his son. “To pay the man who keeps me out of handcuffs.” “Huh?” “My lawyer, boy. Being a black man in the South, it always pays to have a

mean, white mouth piece when trouble comes to find you. And boy, believe me, trouble will come knockin’ on your door when you least expect it.”

CHAPTER 3

’ll be home when I get home, Mary.” “But, Dalton, I’m worried about Jonathon. It’s just not natural for a ten year

old boy to live in a…” “Not again.” Dalton put a hand to his forehead. “I don’t have time for this,

Mary. I have a client waiting in the reception area,” Dalton said before hanging up.

Unlike Dalton, Mary Parker doted on their two children. Jonathon was two years older than his baby sister, Karen. While most ten-year-old boys were into exploring the great outdoors, Jonathon was reading comic books by flashlight in the attic.

He immersed himself in everything from Superman to the Green Hornet. For hours at a time, he would sit in some attic corner of the family’s old

antebellum black and white two-story house, deep in his own fantasy world. Often times Karen would be close by, reveling in his words as he brought these characters from the comics to life.

It began to get old and boring when, no matter what happened or how much kryptonite Superman was exposed to, he always conquered. Eventually, Jonathon began to rewrite these and other stories in his mind to where good didn’t always prevail. Karen loved for him to recount the stories to her. She even began rewriting the stories in her own mind.

Even in school Jonathon remained detached from the real world. The only friends he had were the ones in his mind and on the pages of his comics.

The teachers knew what he was really doing at recess, sitting in the shade of one of the school’s many maple trees. He was using a social studies or an English textbook to cover up the comics he’d placed inside. As long as he continued to excel at his schoolwork they let it pass. What they didn’t know was that Jonathon had created a superhero in the image of what he imagined his father to be.

Young Jonathon reveled in the creation of his father as the notorious superhero he simply named Justice.

Jonathon’s imaginary superhero, Justice, was a mild-mannered Clark Kent type, wearing glasses of course. When the bad guys broke into the homes of innocent people and carted them off to jail, Justice got the call. He then would find a utility closet, spin himself like a top, and emerge as Justice, the caped

“I

crusader wearing a white cape, with the capital letter J looming on his muscular chest.

Mary knew her son wasn’t normal, the fantasy world he lived in, the unhealthy idolization of his father.

No matter how much she begged Dalton to spend more time with her and the kids, his one word answer was always the same. Soon. Soon as I make partner. Once he made partner, it became Soon as I start my own practice. Once that came to pass, it was, Soon as I become Governor. Soon would always come before his family.

The more attention Jonathon sought from his idol, the more Dalton put his son off. As Jonathon grew older, he started to rebel in hopes of getting his father’s attention.

Mary was a passive and loving mother. She was active in the community, with the boy scouts and girl scouts. She served as PTA chairperson. And despite all of her community activities as well as raising two children she kept a spotless house. That in itself would be a full-time job for the average housewife.

The forty-eight acre Parker Estate had been in Dalton’s family since the early 1800’s. It was a former slave plantation. Remnants of an old barn and a couple of slave shanties, deep in the back yard, served as club houses for Jonathon and Karen.

By Rome, Georgia’s standards, the Parker’s were rich. In any other big city, they would’ve been simply well off. The Parker plantation was in the most historic and wealthiest part of town, about forty-five minutes north of Atlanta.

*****

It was mid-December, a time when every son’s mother was sitting on pins

and needles, fearing for their child’s future. Pearl Harbor had just been bombed. President Roosevelt had just made a formal declaration of war. Every day, draft notices were separating mother and son.

It was around this same time that a large mining company set up shop in the North Georgia Mountains. Rome was so excited about the jobs that this mining construction company would provide, they conveniently overlooked the absence of licenses and permits.

Around that same time, a young drifter posing as a mining engineer came to Rome. He had long dusty-brown hair and stood only five foot seven. What he lacked in height and size he more than made up for in cunningness. Like most

men in town, the day he laid eyes on the stunning eighteen-year-old bombshell, Lorraine Finch, he instantly fell in love. Instead of directing his attention toward the girl, though, he focused his attentions on her father. After winning the father over the daughter was easy. They were happily married that same year, and she became pregnant with his son.

Thirteen years later, while working alone in the mines, a freak accident occurred. A pair of wooden support beams collapsed, causing part of the mine to cave in. From tons of dirt emerged Lorraine’s husband’s horror-ridden face, gazing at whoever dared to meet his lifeless stare.

First her father, now her husband. Both the men Lorraine Finch loved most in this world were abruptly taken. On that day she died along with her husband; her body just refused to follow. Part of her refusing to face her husband’s death used what she saw in her son to reincarnate him to the physical form of manhood. Thus, a sordid incestful affair between mother and son began.

One year to the day after the death of her husband, she gave birth to a second son, fourteen years after her first was born.

Dalton Parker, attorney for the Finch family, was the only outsider that knew of the biggest scandal in Rome’s history. It was this information that made him Ceasar in the small town of Rome, Georgia. Or better yet, it was the threat of such information falling into the wrong hands that gave him power. Dalton never actually threatened to divulge or leak this information, but it was his threatening air of confidence that was feared and respected, a fear and respect that was passed down from father to son.

Being Caesar in Rome, Georgia did not offer enough to satisfy the growing appetite for power that Dalton Parker possessed. He wanted respect and recognition throughout the state, and even the nation.

This wanting drove him to tirelessly work sixty, seventy hours a week at Parker and Associates Law firm in downtown Atlanta. There would never be a partner in his firm. But there would always be enough room for underlings and workers. To Dalton, there could only be one Caesar.

Dalton pressed the call button for his secretary. “Peg, send Mr. Jones in.”

CHAPTER 4

oltrane was about to start raking the mountain of leaves that covered the front lawn when he spotted Tracy and her girls walking up the street. That’s when he turned the radio up. “Some people got to have it. Some people really need it,” he sang along with the O’Jays, as the jam For the Love of Money blasted from the radio he had out on the porch with him. “Tracy!” he shouted out into the street. “Girl, don’t act like you don’t hear me callin’ you.”

Tracy was the finest thing in the eighth grade, with her coffee brown complexion and shoulder length Puerto Rican, silky, black hair.

She stopped in front of the house. With her hands on her little hour glass hips she shouted, “Coltrane, Whachu want?”

“It ain’t about what I want. It’s about whachu need, and I got it. My daddy ain’t gon’ be home until nine tonight, and you can get it,” he said holding the crotch of his shorts.

“Yo’ mouth may water and yo’ teeth may grit,” Tracy’s and her two girlfriends choused while slapping themselves on the behind, “but none of this here is you gon’ get little man.”

“I got your little man hangin’ low, if you want it let me know,” he shot back. “We is grown ass women little boy.” One of Tracy’s girlfriend’s shouted.

“Why don’t you go get your boys Tre and Rodney and find a sandbox to play in.”

“Boys play with toys, my name is Sammy and I play with yo…” “Boy, don’t make me come over there with some soap for that mouth,” Old

Lady Pow-Wow shouted from next door. “Yes, Ma’am,” Coltrane said, while watching the girls walk off laughing. Tracy was part of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee. And rumor had it that they

would do anything for a price. And as stated earlier, Tracy was wine fine, built like a baby Betty Boop. Only problem was Coltrane was broke.

The next morning Coltrane was standing in the breakfast line at Forest Manor Junior High trying to think of a way to convince Tre and Rodney to go along with his next money making scheme. He had to have Tracy.

“Peep game. You busters gon’ sit in class broke, dumb, and ignorant listening to Ms. Thompson tell you how Columbus found America when it was never lost, or are you gon’ get this paper with me?” Before they could object, he continued, “I’m talking ’bout putting dead presidents in your pocket.” Coltrane shook his

C

head. “This ain’t no one-time lick. What I’m about to propose will set us up for life.”

Rodney laughed. “Whatever you selling, I ain’t buying. Yo fat ass ain’t gon’ put me down with another one of your schemes.”

“Schemes? What I got in mind ain’t no scheme. It’s an opportunity fool,” Coltrane said, as they sat down with their powdered eggs and bacon at the end of a table in the corner of the cafeteria.

“An opportunity to get us in more trouble than you did last time you tried to get us paid,” Tre said.

After the bicycle fiasco, Coltrane almost lost his army. It took him almost four months to get his troops to return to his charge. The master plan of master plans spawned from his genius thirteen-year-old mind. All the time, opportunity was right under his nose, or, rather, right under his feet. All of his father’s Hefty garbage bags of weed were kept in the basement.

CHAPTER 5

his is the absolute last comic book I am buying you, Jonathon Parker. You are entirely too old to be living in this… this fantasy world. You need to go outside and make friends like normal thirteen-year olds. Your father and I think you should be more active, take up football or baseball,” Jonathon’s mother said.

It was either no allowance or this was the last comic book. If she stopped buying comics books, so what? Jonathon knew he’d find a way to get his beloved comics.

In a burst of anger, he exploded, “Okay, don’t buy me anymore books. Cut off my allowance. Just stop threatening me, will you? And come on, Mom, Dad doesn’t care what I do. He’s never home. He would never even know if I played football or some other barbaric sport unless you told him. Like he’d really take time to come see me play. These kids in this town are just plain stupid. I hate you and I hate this town.”

Jonathon had been so passive; never had he talked back to his mother. But instead of shock, it angered her to hear him speak like this and embarrass her at of all places, K-Mart.

She snatched the book out of his hand. “You will not speak to me nor talk of your father that way. Just wait until he gets home. He will hear about this.”

Mary grabbed her son’s shoulders, turning him toward her and looking him in the eye to insure he knew how serious the matter was. They stood in the middle of Aisle 9, while nosy shoppers passed by glancing at them.

“Take your hands off me,” he pushed his mother into the shelves causing her to knock down several boxes of cereal. “If you want me to be more active, get involved with sports; tell Dad to play catch with me. Really, Mom, you act really dumb sometimes. You know dad is too busy to take time out for me,” Jonathon said.

Embarrassed and in shock Mary sat on the ground for a moment. She knew Jonathon was right. Dalton was too self-absorbed to care about anything but the next election.

Even though her anger was directed toward her thirteen-year-old brown-haired, pale, paper-thin, wide-eyed, five-and-a-half-foot tall son, it was her husband that she was really angry with. It upset and confused her even more that her son idolized his father, who paid about as much attention to his children as he

“T

did a pair of jeans, only worn when convenient, and in Dalton Parker’s case wearing jeans was very rare.

That same night, after Jonathon and his sister were supposed to be asleep, Mary confronted Dalton, who had been in Atlanta for two days and had just returned home very tired and disheveled after losing a big murder case.

It didn’t matter that Dalton knew from day one that his client was guilty. Guilt, innocence, or even justice was not important. Only winning was. The prosecution’s case was weak and circumstantial, and Dalton knew he could win. Needless to say, he wasn’t in the best of moods when Mary blocked the kitchen entrance like security backstage at a Grateful Dead concert. She stood there with her arms crossed, tapping her feet to the ground, wearing a long, flowing blue, sheer nightgown.

“Dalton, for fourteen lonely years I have put up with your long hours and your not being here when I need you. I’ve made excuses for your absence at the countless functions that we were supposed to attend. Now I am even making excuses for your absence in the lives of your children, and I am sick and tired of it.”

Interrupting her, hand straightforward as if a traffic guard signaling pedestrians to halt, he asked, “Mary, can we please talk about this later? I am exhausted. I haven’t slept in two days, and, worse, I just lost a very big case.”

“This can’t wait and neither will I. Your family needs you. Your son lives in a fantasy world. He has no friends; he comes home from school, goes to his room, or that godforsaken attic and engrosses himself in comics. He needs his father.”

“What am I supposed to do? Huh? What? Tell me what you want me to do, Mary!” Dalton raised his arms in frustration. “What the frigging hell am I supposed to do, quit my practice, stay home all day with you and the kids? You want me to wipe the boy’s nose every time he gets into a fight? Hold his hand and tell him that everything is going to be alright.”

She nodded. “That would be a good start.” “No, I won’t, and everything is not going to be frigging alright. The sooner he

and you realize that, the better,” Dalton shouted. “You care more about your career than you do about your own son. What

kind of father, no what kind of man are you?” “For crying out loud the boy’s twelve years old, dammit!” “Thirteen. See you don’t even keep up with your son’s age.”

“Twelve, thirteen what’s the difference. You don’t work. You go play catch with him. You wipe his nose. He’s a frigging Parker, Mary, not a frigging pansy. The boy has to learn his way in life. I am not going to always be there for him whenever he needs his daddy to go play with him.”

“I’m not asking you to always be there; I’m just asking you to be there some of the time. Dalton, you’re his father. Your son idolizes you.” Tears were flowing down her face. “He doesn’t deserve to be passed off for your stupid career ambitions.” Mary said.

“This is the last I will say, and we won’t talk about this again. I am working day and night for my family. I am trying to build something for our children. I do not have the patience nor the time to be here whenever his shoes come untied. If I’m his idol, and he doesn’t like what I’m doing, then he needs to find another frigging idol. I was a lawyer when you married me and I am still one now. If he has a problem, you fix it. I don’t have time.”

Mary, frustrated and in tears, was determined to have the last word. “We have more money than we can spend, so I know that is not it! You are just greedy and evil! It’s all about Dalton Parker and what he wants! You have never loved me! You don’t even love your kids! You’re living a lie! I see where Jonathon gets his fantasy world! From you! You will never be mayor or governor! You’ll always be Dalton Parker, lawyer and dictator of your own world, in your own demented mind.”

Like a cornered panther, Dalton lurched at Mary, grabbed her neck, and began to squeeze. She wildly began to flail her arms, but Dalton didn’t move a muscle--except for the ones in his vice-like grip.

That was when young Jonathon appeared with a look of sheer terror and disgust on his face. After seeing his son in the doorway, Dalton relinquished his death grip.

Mary fell to her knees gasping for air. Dalton pushed Jonathon aside and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Confused, Jonathon quietly looked on. His face was void of emotion, but his mind was in a rage and his heart turned to stone. How could Justice be so unjust? How could his hero turn out to be such a fraud? How could this man, this stranger in his father’s body, hurt his mother?

It was as if Jonathon was in shock the way he just stood in the doorway staring at Mary while she coughed and tried to get a hold of herself.

He would have to pay. Aliens had invaded his father’s body and taken over.

But then, he closed his eyes so hard his cheeks hurt. That’s when he realized that his father was not an alien. He was just evil. Some day somehow Jonathon knew that Justice would come calling for his father.

His father made it clear. Dalton caring nothing about his son was a whole lot for a normal eighth grader to absorb, but Jonathon was far from normal. Generations of vengeful Parker blood flowed through his veins. Jonathon’s father had been so right when he said, “The boy is a Parker.” And that’s what should have scared Dalton more than anything else.

*****

Dalton had never struck anyone in anger. He was always in control. He had,

however, completely lost it, letting his wife steal the moment. As he sat at his desk, in his meticulously cleaned office, he pondered the

evening’s events. How could he have lost such a controversial case at a time like this? Before

the outcome, he was a shoe-in to be appointed Georgia’s next Lieutenant Governor, bypassing critical steps others appointed before him had taken.

Governor Zeke Dobson’s nephew was due to be sentenced in less than a month. No doubt, his nephew would be exonerated on appeal, for the governor’s long arms would pull his nephew out of purgatory.

To appease the public, the trial had to appear to be fair and void of his uncle’s help. Dalton had slaved away for close to a year building what he thought to be an impenetrable wall of defense. He coached, bribed witnesses, and used every ethical and unethical tactic he could muster.

While in his home office, holding his forehead in his hands, he tried to begin contemplating his next move when he was interrupted by a blinking mental glimpse of his earlier confrontation with his wife. Without so much as half a thought he figured she’d get over it. He even contemplated taking his son to a ball game. It only took a second for him to come to his senses and start planning a way, if any, to get inside the governor’s office, or to set himself up for a senatorial campaign. He had the money and was strategically positioned. But something was missing. That something was the support of certain politically connected individuals. There had to be another back door or side door that he could break into to get into the governor’s cabinet. But where was it?

*****

Once a closet introvert, Jonathon blossomed into a manipulative and

boisterous extrovert. It was he who was the hero, not his father. He was the superhero--Justice.

He began to slack off in his schoolwork. After witnessing the confrontation between his mother and father Jonathon did a 180 degree turnaround. No longer into comics, he was now into people.

A couple years later, Jonathon started high school. By then, he was a silent terror to any and all who got in the way of him living out the superhero character he created--Justice. He learned to disguise his acts of evil. He became a master manipulator. Everyone adored him. Everyone except those who saw the boy behind the mirror he hid behind.

CHAPTER 6

oltrane and Tre’ started calling Rodney Big Baby in the eight grade. It started out as a joke after they all got paddled in school for one of the many schemes they got caught trying to pull. Big Baby would always whine before getting paddled.

“Bro, you see the news? Look, man. Stay where you at. I’m on my way,” Coltrane said to his boy, Big Baby.

“Wha-wha-what’s up, Trane? What happened?” Big Baby questioned. “You hit, dog. They done found out.” “Who-who-who found out what?” Big Baby stuttered. “They got an all-points, shoot-on-site bulletin out for you.” “For what?” he screamed. “Don’t play stupid. You know grizzlies got to be on a nature preserve or in

a zoo. Your fat ass running around eatin’ everything in sight.” Coltrane laughed.

“Man, quit playin’ on my damn phone, you fat cow. What you want? You know I gotta serve these squares.” Switching subjects Rodney asked, Man, you still going to Texas for the summer?”

“Yes sir,” Coltrane said. “You gon’ miss a lotta paper.” “Dog, you know I’m strapped for cash. Man, I ain’t seen my moms or my

brother since they moved to Houston a couple years ago.” “That’s whats up,” Big Baby said. “Dog, we done came a long way in three years. It’s about time a nigga

vacated these premises for a minute at least.” “Yeah Man, I ’member back in eighth grade when you started pinchin’ off

your pops.” “Yep. And he ain’t never missed it.” Coltrane wasn’t stupid. He knew that his father knew that he knew that he

had known for some time that he was into something that wasn’t quite right. But like his Daddy always said, ‘A wrong ain’t a wrong unless you get caught’.

After Tre got busted last year selling to an undercover, his momma sent him to live with his grandparents in Mississippi. This was around the same time Big Baby got bussed on the new majority/minority transfer to some white high school on the other side of town. That was the best thing to happen to him

C

and us. Them white boys smoked weed like it was legal, and Big Baby sold it like it was too.

“Fat ass, you listenin’ to me?” Big Baby said, interrupting my de-ja vu-ourism.

“I hear ya’, big ass.” “Man, looks like I’m gon’ be on my own this summer. When you leavin’?” “That’s why I called you, man. I’m raisin up out this piece in the morning.

I’m gon’ give you my beeper. You got all my clients and my hos. “I’ll take your clients but, playa, I don’t need yo hos. Nigga, you know I

got more hos than Sears got clothes, and more bitches than Georgia Power got light switches.

As Big Baby’s pockets grew, so did the attention he received from the junior high and high school girls--white and black. Big Baby was a hit.

At fifteen, Big Baby was driving a ’76 Seville. So what, he had no license? He had money to pay the ticket if he got stopped. If you needed to score some killa herb, Big Baby was the man. The wealthy yuppie white kids at Henderson High School supported Big Baby, his family, and his lifestyle. To think, Coltrane started him out just a few short years ago.

*****

The next morning Don dropped Coltrane off at the airport. It was his first

time flying. So far he wasn’t scared. Hartsfield International was crazy big, he thought, looking around at the busy airport.

He had heard about it, but it was still hard for him to believe that the airport had an underground subway.

We didn’t even have an underground subway on our streets. I needed a joint now, for real. I could see myself selling weed to all these suits. And I’d be standing right next to these moving sidewalks watching them bust their behinds as they walked on these things, high as a mutha fucka.

Coltrane slept the entire flight. After departing the plane, he got onto the Airport shuttle.

“Baggage Terminal, exit now, please,” a female voice said over the airport shuttle intercom.

After following the crowd off the train, Miles, Coltrane’s brother nearly tackled him.

“I see you still ugly,” Miles said with a wide smile on his face.

It took Coltrane a minute to recognize him. “Miles? Dang boy, what Momma been feein’ you, whole cows?” Miles was no longer the little brother. “Boy, you almost got jacked up in here. Just cause you bigger than me don’t mean I still won’t drop them bees on you.” Coltrane playfully shadow-boxed.

“I know ain’t never told you, but,” Coltrane put an arm around his brother, “I love you, and I’m glad you my little, I mean my younger brother.

The smile in Miles’s eyes said what words did not. “Come on, let’s get your bags. Mama’s triple-parked outside. You know

how she is,” Miles said. “Yeah, she probably out there giving a sermon to the parking police.” Once they got outside, Coltrane was seven years old all over again. “Momma! Momma!” he ran into her arms. “I missed you so much,” he

cried. “Baby, I missed you too. Step back, let Momma see you.” She paused and

looked him up and down. “Boy, you done lost all your weight. Maybe I need to go move in with your daddy.”

“Yeah, right. You’d lose some weight all right. But not living with Daddy. I heard they don’t feed you much in prison. ‘Cause you know good and well that’s where you’d end up, after killing Daddy.”

She laughed. “You probably right. Come on, boys. Let’s go ’fore we get a ticket for being happy.”

Houston had to be just a few blocks from hell. I ain’t never been nowhere too hot to breathe. The air was waving. I need to find some A/C and quick, Coltrane thought as they rode through the city with the windows down.

Houston was real country. But that was cool with Coltrane. It was a nice change to get away from all the madness back home. He’d only been in Houston for a couple weeks when his Daddy started calling and he began playing dodge-ball with the phone. He’d promised to come back home for his sister La-Shae’s twentieth birthday party on June 12th, but he was having too much fun with all these L 7 square cats in Houston. Hell, she’d have another birthday next year, he thought.

*****

It was June 13, 1985, the day after his sister’s birthday--around two in the

morning when the call came.

His mother came into his room and stood over his bed. Without any prodding he woke up to see the tears running down her face in slow motion.

The room felt airless. It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t cold. It was just there. He didn’t know what it was. Coltrane just knew it was there. His mother’s face was a mask of calm pain. She stood there like a statue.

As his eyes watered, the walls in the room started to wrinkle and fade. He looked to the ceiling. It was moving in a circle. When his eyes returned to the bed, he noticed that his mother had his hand in hers.

“Baby, I just got off the phone with your sister. Your father . . .” “Nooooooooo!” he shook his head. No.No.No.No.No. He knew the rest. “Is gone,” Mama finished. “I was supposed to be there. It’s my fault. I let him down?” She squeezed his hand. “Baby, it was just his time. You don’t have the power to give or take a life.

Only God can. It was just your father’s time,” she said. Coltrane sat up, so his mother could sit down beside him. She told him that Don was shot and killed in a botched robbery right

outside of the 500 Liquor Store on the south side of town, nowhere near their house or any of his hangouts. It was the weirdest thing. Don didn’t even drink.

They probably would never know who did it or why. The police didn’t even have an autopsy done. Donald Albert Jones wasn’t important enough for the law to look into his murder, but he was important enough for them to seize all of his assets and bank accounts for back taxes. That didn’t surprise anyone. The life of a black man wasn’t worth the life of a white man’s dog in Atlanta, or anywhere else in the U.S. His sudden death, Coltrane not being there, him dodging his calls, the way his father lived, the way he was living, the mystery surrounding his father’s death—Coltrane was a gunpowder keg of mixed emotions. It seemed like he cried for an infinite minute of eternity. He cried for his father. He cried for his father’s, father that had been shot by a rival pimp before Coltrane was born. He cried for being a Master trying to get out of a puppet’s body.

The next morning he was on a flight back to Atlanta. A few days later on June 19, 1985, Coltrane was sitting in the front row of

Second Baptist at his father’s funeral. It was more of a parade, a party and social event for hustlers, than it was a funeral. It was a fashion show for women trying to land a baller.

His daddy’s friends, workers and motorcycle buddies chipped in for the party. That’s what it was. Supposed to be a funeral, but it was an all-the-way-live celebration and tribute to one of Atlanta’s own adopted sons.

Hustlers came from as far away as Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis, to bury one of their own. If there was such a thing as a Player’s ball, then this had to be the Player’s funeral.

Don wasn’t much for organized religion. He believed that religion was just another way Master kept the slaves divided.

That still didn’t stop Second Baptist’s own Reverend Ike Jones from tap-dancing on the pulpit.

When Reverend Hufalous Simpson, from Mount Zion, did his James Brown spin, one leg went to the left and the other went to the right, throwing off the balance of his four stomachs, causing two of the four to land on Don’s face and the other two to tip the casket. Half the choir had to jump down to grab the casket before it fell all the way over. The other half had to grab the good Reverend before he fell and got hurt.

Now, Reverend Laramie ‘One-Touch’ Higgenbottom brought a six-piece band and a forty-member choir. He sucked half the wind out of the church before he started singing His Eye Is on the Sparrow, in a Minnie Ripperton voice. The more people cried, the higher-pitched his voice became.

In the middle of the song, he broke out with his own rendition of the song Please Be Patient with Me, God Is Not Through With Me Yet. And as he began the last verse, he went out into the crowd and started touching folks, pushing people’s heads back. You didn’t know if he was trying to heal or hurt them.

Don couldn’t enjoy this party in his honor, but Coltrane knew that one day he’d plan a party as grandiose as this one for himself. The only difference would be that his wouldn’t be a funeral.

CHAPTER 7

f you disturb the peace with your senseless screams again, you’ll leave me no choice but to cut your windpipe out,” Jonathon said as he put the bloody hunting knife his sister gave him back into its holder. Judging from the sweat pouring off his victim, you would’ve thought it was a mid-summer heat wave instead of a breezy, autumn early evening in Rome.

A colorful array of leaves danced in the wind while another of Jonathon’s victims winced in pain from the ball-busting knee he’d delivered to the groin. Jonathon towered over the faceless person slumped against an old oak tree somewhere in the wooded acreage surrounding the Parker Estate.

“Now Terry, you have two options. Option A, you can do what I say and accept this forty dollars, or Option B, I’ll take what I want and you’ll miss a great opportunity to increase your wealth.”

Jonathon wore a twisted look on his face as he smiled. He put a finger to his lips before continuing, “Shhhhh. Not so loud. I can hear you thinking. Trust me,” Jonathon said, while he continued to taunt the wide-eyed, frightened kid.

“No one, I mean absolutely no one, not the sheriff, the mayor, not even your own parents would believe you if you told them about this evening. And if you do, that is, tell anyone, not only will I come back to visit you, but I’ll make sure everyone knows that your brother is also your father.”

As soon as little Terry looked up, Jonathon lurched, and before a sound could be uttered, Jonathon’s hand covered the child’s mouth while the other held onto a handful of his victim’s sweaty hair.

On the ground, straddling his victim, in a calm voice Jonathon continued, “I mean, use your head. Who will take the word of a backwoods, baby hillbilly, whose mother is the town loony tune? They would take my word, the son of one of the biggest philanthropists this town has ever seen.”

“Why are you doing this?” Terry cried. “Because I can,” Jonathon said right before rolling his helpless prey onto

all fours, yanking his victim’s pants down and then his own. “Please. Please. Let me go. I, I won’t tell anyone. Let me go, please.” “Do you want the money or not? This is the last time I’m going to warn

you. If I have to keep fighting, you won’t get anything but a lot of bruises and bad memories. Open your legs. Now,” Jonathon commanded.

“I

The worst part was the fact that the victim knew Jonathon was right. There wouldn’t be a leg to stand on or a knee to sit on. Jonathon was a Parker, and he was nothing.

Almost as quick as it had started it was over. The cordite smell of blood permeated the air. Jonathon left his twelve year old victim silently crying on the blood-stained ground as he pulled up and fastened his jeans.

“See, it wasn’t so bad. Just think, now you are cleansed of your family’s sins. See ya at school tomorrow,” Jonathon said before walking away, thinking that once again Justice had prevailed.

Jonathon knew none of his victims would ever tell a soul, for fear of the embarrassment and ridicule their families would be sure to endure. The adrenaline rush he got from transforming himself from mere man to Justice, Superhero, Avenger for the Innocent, taking what was most precious from someone, and in turn giving them the justice they needed in order to receive forgiveness for the sins of their parents, is what got Jonathon off.

Careful planning went into his games of redemption. Everything had to be timed just right for the perfect execution. There was no greater rush than carrying out justice, in the name of Justice. It was his duty to the world and to God.

Although he was not religious, he did believe in a higher power. How else could he have so much power over others? There had to be someone or something with power over him, and not long after his fifteenth birthday he found out who that someone or something was.

His mother had just taken Karen to ballet rehearsal. His father was allegedly working late as usual while Jonathon sat on the sofa in the den counting the dark spots on the living room coffee table. The family bible caught his attention. It was an heirloom passed down from four generations of Parker men.

The bible was the only object on the large octagonal oak structure. Its stenciled golden letters looked up at him as if daring him to explore its pages. The album-size sacred vessel of hope had been the only family heirloom his father possessed.

Jonathon’s paternal great-grandfather had come to this country in the late nineteenth century with his wife and young son, the clothes on their backs, and this leather bound bible. The latter is the only thing that connected the Parkers with their homeland of Athens, Greece.

Jonathon sat on the couch admiring the gold lettering stitched on the brown book in his lap. The book seemed to be working some type of spell over him as he sat there and traced the words with his index finger. He must have sat there rubbing his hand across the book for half an hour before he decided to see what would make a man leave everything but a book to enter a new life in a new world.

Over the next few months, Jonathon read the book from cover to cover three times, studying and memorizing scripture. He figured if this book made slaves out of people, like the folks he saw falling out in the aisles, emptying their purses onto a metal tray on television every Sunday morning, then he would be a student of the slave-maker. And upon mastering the book’s magic, then he could become a slave-master and conqueror of the slave world.

“Convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. (John 16:8),” he read out loud, fueling his beliefs.

He skipped around sporadically, licking his finger as he barreled through the pages searching for even more validation for the type of secret justice that he often chose to carry out.

“I will raise up for them a prophet like you among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. (Deuteronomy 18:18-19),” Jonathon stood up from his bed, turned and faced the window. He stared at the night rain dancing against his window pane for a moment before putting a hand over his heart. “Raise up. His mouth. Justice. I am He. I am the mouth. It is my job. No, my calling. It’s up to me. The sins of the father’s will be carried out on the sons and daughters unless I, he whom God speaks through justice, God’s chosen one, redeems the children with a single seed.”

CHAPTER 8

onathon was at the park shadowing someone in need of the type of purging that Justice could only carry out. The muscles in his legs contracted with the rhythm of his thoughts as he jogged behind her. The birds tried to warn her with there incessant chirping as man and victim jogged past swings and sliding boards. He slowed to tie his hair back into a ponytail. It was hard to believe that only three years ago this man child was a timid five and a half foot, slim, pale, little kid.

But now, Jonathon towered over his eleventh grade classmates at six-two, two-hundred plus pounds.

It had been three years. Three years of not knowing why he was chosen by God to carry out such a unique form of Justice.

It was three years ago that Jonathon stood up to his mother when she took away his reality, his comic books. That same day, he wished her dead. If it weren’t for Justice, savior of the innocent, protector of the weak, his wish would have come to pass that same evening when his father tried to strangle his mother.

One step out of the confines of darkness and two more into the light of his former idol, was all it took for his evil father to relinquish the stronghold over his mother.

It was then that Jonathon knew that he was living a lie. He was living in the shadow of evil. It wasn’t his father who was the superhero, Justice. It was he himself, Jonathon Parker. It was he who took mercy on his sinful mother and forgave her. It was he who saved her life.

His father, yet still a powerful and dangerously evil adversary, would be thwarted. All injustice would be thwarted. Wherever Justice dwelled, evil would be defeated. It was his job from now on to be the secret avenger of the innocent, protector of the weak. With a slight nod of the head, Jonathon Dalton Parker accepted the call to be ‘Justice’, as he’d done several times in the past.

The people he released his influence on were children of sinfully bad people. In one particular case, his victim’s father was the town drunk. This particular

family suffered because the man couldn’t keep a job. That was justification enough for Jonathon to plant the seed of Justice into the body of the innocent one in need of redemption from their father’s sinful drunkenness.

Once Jonathon began high school he became Mr. Popular. He assisted the elderly. He helped pregnant women with their groceries. He was loved by most,

J

and secretly hated by few. His grades were fair to middling. He was smart, and he would have gotten excellent grades if school wasn’t so boring.

The only excitement and challenge school gave him was doing nothing and getting graded for something. Jonathon coerced and bribed others to do his work. Tests were the biggest challenges, and the most fun. It was student against teacher.

He planned, plotted, and studied. Not for the test, but he studied how to cheat and get away without getting caught, and he never did. The most important test in high school was the NHSEAT, the National High School Equivalency Aptitude Test. Every student had to pass it to graduate.

At the beginning of the school year, the junior class was forewarned of the upcoming NHSEAT. Instead of diligent study after and before school, Jonathon merely observed, listened, and planned.

It took a few weeks of listening to gossip--who did what to you know who--for Jonathon to come up with a plan.

Emerson High’s own mailman, Joe Thornsby, was married with two sons and a newborn baby girl. His wife was the only other attorney in Rome. Joe had to be somewhere in his early forties. He was a small, quiet, Barney-Fife-looking guy.

He was stopping off two, three times a week to have lunch at his best friend Bumper Pine’s trailer home, right up the road from Emerson high.

Old Bumper was the exact opposite of Joe. Bumper was as big as a grizzly and as mean as a rattlesnake when his tail was stepped on. Joe and old Bumper had been drinking buddies for years. The only problem with these lunchtime rendezvous was that old Bumper never knew anything about them.

Bumper was a hard working, God-fearing, fire-and-brimstone, Old Testament-testifying Christian. He believed in an eye for an eye and all that good stuff. Bumper worked in the old paper mill on Braniff Road, across town, past the river. He was a widower from Baltimore, Maryland, who had moved to Rome with his only daughter, Sue Ann Pines, in hopes of raising her in a small, quaint town, away from the drugs and other vices that her mother had succumbed to back in Baltimore.

These secret lunches began one day while Joe was delivering mail. He was just about to bend down and slide Bumper’s mail through a mail slot when the trailer’s front door slammed into his nose.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry Joe.” Sue Ann said, bending down to help the mailman. “Hold your head up,” Bumper’s butter-colored daughter said as she led Joe in to the trailer.”

“Girl, your pa, know you home?” Joe asked while standing in the kitchen holding a dishtowel wrapped with ice to his nose.

Her take charge demeanor instantly vanished. “No,” she said shaking her head. “He’s going to kill me.”

“Shhh,” Joe mouthed, putting the towel in the sink and putting his arms around her. “Don’t cry little girl. You don’t have to worry about old Joe telling Bumper, you playin’ a little hookie from school.”

“I’m not skippin’. I just come home at lunch to watch Days of our Lives.” Joe, squeezed the his best friends daughter to him even closer. “So why the

tears little girl?” Joe asked. She pointed behind her. “He just bought that TV a week ago, and I spilled

Kool-Aid. He told me not to put anything on top of it. And now it’s, it’s broken. I swear, I’ll do anything to erase the last fifteen minutes.”

Anything, Joe thought as he rubbed her back. “Shhhh. Shhhh, little girl,” Joe said, stroking her long, silky, black hair. “Don’t cry. Your Uncle Joe might just be able to help you out.

“How?” she asked still crying into his chest. “All we have to do is clean up the mess you made on the floor beside the TV,

and I can replace it with a new one, just like it before your Pa gets home.” The comforting feeling of her firm, standing-at-attention breasts and tight

little marble nipples rubbing against his white uniformed shirt made him oblivious to any pain he may have had from his rapidly swelling nose.

“You’d do that for me?” She asked, looking up into Joe’s eyes. And that’s when she saw that all too familiar look she received from boys at swim class.

“Sure I will. I just need you to do me a teensy-tiny favor,” he said, taking a deep breathe, inhaling the sweet aroma of youth.

*****

Early one morning, after the town was at work, school, or still sleeping off

last night’s hangover, Jonathon used one of his mother’s credit cards on the flimsy, white aluminum door of the Pines’ home.

Once inside, he hid four cameras in Sue Ann’s bedroom and the kitchen. He was tempted to hide in a closet or under a bed like he’d done the first time he’d broken into the trailer.

He still couldn’t believe his luck back three weeks ago. He’d been watching Sue Ann—waiting on the right time to pounce—so he could save her from the drunken sins of her father.

He was just about to do just that, before crawling from under Bumper’s bed and glancing out the window.

Joe was walking up the trailer’s wooden stairs. It seemed as if Jonathon had just crawled back under the bed when that

action began. Bumpers bed faced the hallway leading to the small living room and then the

kitchen, giving Jonathon a great view. Minutes later, Sue Ann’s butter-bronzed legs were spread. Her back was bent

over the kitchen sink. Her hair was wrapped around Joe’s wrist. His pants down to his knees. Her skirt up on her back.

“Harder. Harder! Harder! she shouted. Blood dripped from Joe’s nose onto her curved back. The masonry jar Joe

draknk from a few minutes earlier rattled until it fell onto the floor. Glass shattered all around them.

Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop, she ordered. Panting and pumping like a dog in heat, Joe obeyed her command. Now, he had no choice but to deliver ‘Justice’. And to think, he’d

entertained thoughts of letting Sue Ann be after jogging behind her at the park a couple months ago.

Everything went as planned. Joe and Sue Ann met at the trailer like they’d been doing three days a week for the past three weeks.

Late that evening, Jonathon finished editing the tape he’d made. A few days later he hand-delivered it and explained to Joe what was on it and

what Joe had to do to make sure the tape and all copies disappeared. A week later, Joe took a detour from his mail route through some woods near

Emerson High. Jonathon was waiting as planned. A few minutes later the two of them went

their separate ways, one with a copy of the NHSEAT test, and the other with a mountain of weight lifted from his shoulders.

It took all of two days for Jonathon to get a couple of city college geeks to take the test and sell him the answers.

A couple months later, the whole school was called for an assembly in the school’s new Parker gymnasium.

The principal made a long, drawn-out speech about school pride and academic accountability.

“I must say, it is an honor and a privilege to not only have taught but be in the presence of greatness. All of you should be proud to have attended school and to have befriended the individual who scored the second highest score in the nation, the third highest score of all time. One of Rome Georgia’s sons has made our city proud. I am honored to present this plaque and certificate of excellence, signed by the President of the United States, to Jonathon Dalton Parker.”

*****

The summer of ’86 was memorable for more reasons than many cared to

remember. Jonathon was about to become a high school senior. His father, Dalton, had rented a house on Lake Lanier so that the family could spend the summer on Atlanta’s premiere lake resort.

Dalton, as usual, was MIA. The Parker’s had long ago learned to death-ear Dalton’s late working excuses and false promises. Upon arriving at the lake, and after unpacking, Jonathon announced he would be returning home for the day to finish and mail out college applications.

Jonathon had waited for this day for months. Ever since he’d viewed the tapes, he dreamt of being the mailman. Without a doubt, he had to have Sue Ann Pines. She made every letter in the word beautiful, proud. She didn’t walk. She floated. She wore her silky, long, black curly hair in a pony tail. She stood straight up, almost eye to eye with Jonathon. Her melon breasts and pear-shaped hips were almost too good to be true. Thick muscular calves like that of a track athlete accentuated her buttery smooth legs. Her eyes were penetrating, dark brown orbs that gave you the feeling of looking through a secret porthole into the soul of the very essence of womanhood. Her fingers were as delicate as they were long.

This woman-child was an untamed goddess. A goddess in desperate need to be formally and properly exorcised of all her fathers sins.

Everything was set. He had the house to himself. He rearranged the living room furniture, making ample room for the day’s festivities. He made a pallet of multi- colored comforters and blankets in the middle of the living room’s hardwood floor.

The threat of her debut porn film getting into the hands of her father, the school principal, or a few select others was more than enough to get her to ask him “how high” when Jonathon said jump.

Sue Ann arrived early in the afternoon. She entered the living room, wowed by the twenty-foot cathedral ceiling and six-foot row of rectangular windows. The room itself was larger than the trailer she lived in.

At first, she had been reluctant and nervous about coming to the Parker estate. She knew what he wanted. Jonathon, the one always in control, had no idea that Sue Ann Pines, too, had a plan.

In the middle of a ferocious coupling, like two untamed animals in the wild, the front door opened.

The only thing on Dalton’s mind before turning the key in the lock was how fast he could get the youngest and newest addition to his six-person staff at Parker and Associates into his bed.

Jonathan didn’t hear or see his father enter the living room, where he had this Amazon-like woman-child bent over the coffee table, one leg on the Louis XV antique sofa’s curved arm and one knee on top of the coffee table. Jonathon’s back was arched as he held onto whatever part of Sue Ann’s body he could get a firm grasp of.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh? Harder? Harder?” Sue Ann shouted, oblivious to the rainfall of sweat that fell from Jonathon’s body onto her back.

Dalton’s jaw dropped at the scene before him. “What the hell?” Dalton exploded. Surprised and frightened by Dalton’s sudden outburst, his new secretary bit

her tongue. “Jonathon Parker, you good-for-nothing, low-life, sadistic friggin’ animal.

You and your nigger-whore, get the fuck out of my house.” Dalton ordered, grabbing a naked Jonathon by the waist and throwing him to the blanketed hardwood floor.

Jonathon sprang to his feet like a cat and lashed out hitting Dalton square on the jaw. It was a punch that carried the anger and pain of years of neglect, years of hungering for the love and attention only a father could give.

Jonathon tearfully exploded as he watched Dalton recover from the blow to his quickly swelling jaw. “Fuck you. This is as much my house as it is yours. You can’t tell me what to do; only my mother can put me out. You’re not my father. You’ve never been and never will be. You’re nothing but a sperm donor.”

Before another syllable emerged from Jonathon’s mouth, his father’s fist blocked the pathway. Jonathon tried to defend himself to no avail. Justice had failed. Evil had won.

It took this defeat for Jonathon to understand the ultimate reason for his existence. He had to defeat his evil legion-of-doom father. Jonathon would not only be a lawyer, but be the best lawyer. Not only that, but he would reach the pinnacle of success that his father never would. He would conquer the political arena. He’d do what his father never would or could do.

Mary never found out what happened that day. The rest of the summer was uneventful. Despite the irreparable damage done to their already topsy-turvy relationship, Jonathon and Dalton remained cordial.

Jonathon immersed himself into his schoolwork his senior year. He tried to make up for all the years he had lost paying for and cheating on assignments. He had to get as prepared as possible for college. It was a long and difficult year, but Jonathon persevered and graduated, despite the near scandal that could have brought the Parker name to guilt and shame.

The day after Jonathon graduated, Bumper Pines showed up on the Parker’s doorstep.

“I done told that boy a-yourn to stay away from my daughter.” Bumper Pines stood red faced at Dalton’s front door.

Dalton wiped his eyes and pulled his robe tighter. “Good God man, do you know what friggin’ time it is?”

“Damn right, I know what time it is. It’s time for me to beat some sence in that boy of yours.”

Dalton closed the door and stepped outside in his bare feet. “First thing you are going to do is lower you voice,” Dalton said with calm. “Next thing you’re going to do is put that stick down before I have the sheriff come out here and shoot you.”

“Let me tell you somethin’,” Bumper said raising the baseball bat sized stick he carried. “You take your high-fallutin-lawyer ass, back in that house,” he pointed, “and get that boy of yours, or I’m gon’ go in a get him myself.”

Dalton put his arms in front of him. “Okay, man you win. Calm down, let me go get Jonathon and we’ll get to the bottom of this,” Dalton said, while turning around.

A minute later the porch light came on and the door opened.

“Listen here you red-neck-hillbilly, I swear to God, I’ll paint this porch with your blood if you don’t drop that stick,” Dalton said pointing a shotgun in Bumpers’ face.

Bumper dropped his head and the stick. Still pointing the shotgun at Bumper, Dalton continued. “Now, who is your

daughter, and why in the Sam-hell are you out here drunk, at three in the morning raising Cain on my porch?”

“Your boy done got my baby girl with-child,” he said with his chin still on his chest.

“Impossible, you must be mistaken,” Dalton said. Bumper reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “This here is

my baby girl Sue Ann.” Dalton dropped the shot gun, his arms and his jaw. “She’s, She’s…” “Black,” Bumper completed what Dalton couldn’t. “Her momma was

Black.” This was the same girl Dalton caught Jonathon with last year. Scandal was

the first word that came to his mind. “Okay, let’s be rational. You jumping on my son will do nothing but cause

you a world of trouble. If your daughter is pregnant…” “If.” Bumper looked up. “If,” he repeated. “What in hell you mean if?” “What I meant was together we have to come up with a solution to make this

go away,” Dalton said. “Make it go away. You can’t undo no baby.” “Maybe not, but I can draw up an agreement, pay you,” Dalton massaged his

chin, “say twenty-thousand for her to have an abortion and the both of you could leave Rome for good.”

“What in hell I’mo’ do with twenty-thousand. There ain’t enough money in Fort Knox for me to sell my baby girl out. I’ll see you in court,” Bumper said, before turning and stomping off.

It took sixty-thousand dollars and a much better paying job at a paper mill in Spokane, Washington for Bumper, Sue Ann and Dalton to be at the Midtown Abortion clinic near Dalton’s Atlanta office a week later.

Even though Bumper and Dalton agreed, Sue Ann was far from being satisfied. She carried a deep-seated hatred for the Parker family.

Little did anyone know that she hated Jonathon way before she and the mailman were involved. She hadn’t planned on getting pregnant. She hadn’t

planned on enjoying the sex. Her plan was to get enough dirt on Jonathon to take him down. He should’ve never raped her little cousin.

CHAPTER 9

ife was good, I mean, damn good, Coltrane thought. Delta Airlines had transferred his mother back to Atlanta two years ago, a few months after his father passed.

Since then, Coltrane had been getting paid. But now, it was 1987, and he’d just graduated from high school. It was now time for him to take the game to a whole other level. Business had been booming since he’d put his foot on the gas.

The name Coltrane Jones became synonymous with the words The Man. What the Mack was to pimping, he was to the dope game.

Strip clubs, like Magic City, were a player’s paradise. All the finest women took it off there. I’m talking about booty-butt naked, titties flopping, cheeks clapping, hip shaking honey-dips, dancing to jams like Soul II Soul’s new hit, Keep On Movin’. Strip clubs weren’t his thing, but when Coltrane Jones was in the house, it was his house. He always came, decked-out wearing rags like Armani and Bally, a Presidential Rolex, gold and diamonds adorned his neck and hands, and matching gators on his feet usually completed his ensemble.

Many times he’d stroll by some cats in the club. He’d hear the stares and see what they were saying: “That’s Coltrane ‘Mu’ Fuckin’ Jones. Yeah, he the man, dog,” they’d say.

When the girls saw him, they’d damn near twist their ankles trying to get at him. To them, he was money walking. He wasn’t mad at how they viewed him. Everybody had to get their hustle on. He respected game. Besides, they worked for tips, and the biggest ballas were the biggest tippers. Even the entourage most ballas came in the club with were generous spenders.

He knew Five-O was always watching the strip clubs. That was the main reason that he couldn’t be seen in them on the regular. Where better to locate players, hustlers, and dope boys than the strip club? Just like if you really wanted to find the police, where else better to find them than Dunkin’ Donuts?

Coltrane had dope traps all around the ATL. He had seven lieutenants who reported to him, and they had their workers who reported to them. And so on. It was a large operation, a business. If anybody got crazy and tried to do something super stupid, like rob one of his boys, one of his boy’s boys, or one of his boy’s boy’s boys, they all came together like metal on a magnet.

Like the time Bam-Bam hit him up on his cell. He knew it had to be serious. His boys knew not to call him on his cell in the daytime unless it was an absolute

L

emergency. It was understood that Coltrane’s pager was the first line of communication.

“Dog, some cats driving an old beat-up, used-to-be ice cream van, jumped down and robbed three of my traps in the Meadows,” Bam-Bam had said.

“Slow down, dog.” Coltrane paused. “Now tell me what happened.” “They laid all my workers face down, pulled they shirts over their heads.” “Did anybody get hurt?” Coltrane asked. “No. Except for T.O.” “Who?” “T.O. Remember the cat I brought to Sunday breakfast a few months ago?

The fool who took the whole tray of biscuits from the buffet.” “Yeah, yeah, I remember. That’s the cat you said wasn’t playing with a full

deck. How could I forget that clown?” Bam-Bam continued, “So, these cats put a nine to T.O.’s head and tells him

to give it up. How about this fool grabs one of these cats loaded guns by the barrel and, during the scuffle, the gun goes off and shoots T.O. in the shoulder. He’s all right. But they got away with about five G’s of work and money.”

“Had to be somebody watching us,” I said, nodding my head before continuing. “You know somebody knows or saw something that can I.D. the clowns. Bam-Bam, I need you to put the word out that there’s a five-thousand dollar reward for anyone that gives up the clowns, who got us.”

The little money Coltrane lost didn’t hurt him. He made twice that much on the daily. It was strictly principle. If he let this happen, the word would get out and it would be open season on his MVP crew. Next thing you know, somebody would come gunning for him. That’s probably how his father got killed.

This wasn’t gon’ be no repeat, Coltrane thought. It only took two days before someone came forward. Coltrane’s cell phone

rang around noon. “Trane, I got a white girl wanna holler at you about that thing that went

down. You got a minute?” Bam-Bam asked. “Yeah, put her on the phone?” “Mr. Trane, am I going to get the reward money if I tell you who robbed your

people?” she asked. “Yeah, babygirl. What’s your name?” “What’s my name got to do with anything?” “I always like to know who I do business with.” “Karen. Karen Parker.”

“Okay, Karen Parker, I’ll meet you up the street at the Amoco gas station on MLK.” Coltrane paused to look at his wrist. “Let’s see, it’s now two oh five. I can swing through at, let’s say, five this afternoon. That cool with you?”

“Yeah, that’s cool.” “Okay, so what’s up? Tell me whachu got,” Coltrane said. “It was Nu-Nu, James Taylor and his boys.” “How you know?” he asked. “Because the nigga came…” “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Watch yo’ mouth baby girl,” he said. “Sorry. Anyway he came over my house struttin’, bragging ’bout how he and

his friends went down in the Meadows and laid some lames down. And when I asked him for some money to get his son some diapers, he waved me off like I wasn’t shit. Like I was just one of his hos,” she cried.

If you were blind you’d swear Karen Parker was a sistah, the way she spoke. She gave up names and addresses, told Coltrane dang near her whole life story. She told him how she’d been disowned by her wealthy family. All because she got pregnant by a brotha and refused to abort it. Now, the same guy had aborted her. In the meantime, she was damn sure trying to abort his ass. She went on and on about how she was alone with the exception of her older brother, some superstar new attorney, that played by his own rules.

Welcome to the black side, I thought as I felt a little sorry for her. She was a white girl living in a black girl’s world.

The next day, Coltrane got word of the drama that followed Karen’s testimony. It seems that the four guys that robbed his boys were kidnapped while leaving Charles Disco on Simpson road last night.

One at a time they were taken to their parents’ houses. After kicking in the doors, Coltrane’s boys tied up the families of the small-time gangsters, forcing them to watch a new kind of golf game played with baseball bats, substituting the stick up kids’ elbows and knees for golf balls.

Afterwards, Coltrane felt bad for the families, but he felt he had to make a strong statement. And besides, the families of the robbing crew weren’t harmed.

Soon, word got out what happened. Hence, Coltrane ran his business robbery-free and virtually problem-free until the night of his twenty-first birthday.

Funny how no matter how much time disappears, it’s never lost. It seemed like yesterday that he was sitting in the front row of Second Baptist, laughing when most folks would’ve been crying.

Coltrane was in his third-floor midtown penthouse condo, sitting on the beige calfskin leather sofa, reminiscing about the past. He should’ve been getting dressed for his twenty-first birthday party, but memories of his father started to flood his thoughts.

He let out a deep sigh before getting up and going into the kitchen, where he reached over the sink, opened the mahogany cabinet doors, and pulled out two chalk-white, dusty wine glasses. After rinsing them out, he placed them on the island bar a small boat-length from the sink.

“Got-doggit. I almost forgot. Shit. Shit. Shit.” Coltrane said, as he looked at the number that just caused his beeper to vibrate.

“This fool done took ten hours to make a ninety-minute trip.” Early this morning, Skeet, his best customer, called for four kilos of cocaine.

Coltrane was so busy tying up loose ends preparing for the night, he forgot all about Skeet coming from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

He calls me now, of all times. An hour before I planned to make my grand entrance. Now I’mo be late. Unless… unless I take the Vette now, instead of coming back to this side of town to get it later. I had to be careful. I’d just had it detailed and buffed out for tonight.

You could hear the rhythm in the bass-purring engine as he jetted out of the underground parking garage in his brand new 1990 coconut-white drop-top. He had to make a quick stop at Colonial Storage around the corner from his condo.

Who would’ve ever thought to buy some old furniture at a garage sale and put it in storage as cover to conceal a couple hundred thousand dollars in dope? he thought as he drove.

“Slow down, slow down,” he thought out loud. It seemed like he was forgetting something, but what.

“We almost there. Three more minutes. Three minutes to money.” He said out loud as he drove toward the meeting spot.

Suddenly, a dark car raced in front of him. He just chalked it off as somebody who hadn’t left early enough to get to where they had to go. Fuck ’em, should’ve left on time, he thought.

Out of nowhere a similar dark car snuck up behind him as he pulled up to a stoplight. And then the driver of the car ahead put a blinding blue light on top of his car.

CHAPTER 10

t fifteen, Karen Parker discovered boys. One night walking on the sand, she met a young brotha’ at the lake smoking marijuana. He seemed not to have a care in the world. Karen and her new friend talked into the night, below the stars, while looking out at the water as the moon cast its pale, albino-gold, bright reflection over its dark, wavy surface.

The next evening, Karen attended a wild party on a chartered boat with her new friend. Before she knew it, she was smoking marijuana, and drinking shots of tequila.

When she woke up the next morning, she was in the arms of her handsome new friend.

The pain in her thighs and between her legs had never felt better. Before last night, she’d been a virgin. Now she could barely stand, let alone walk. She had no idea what it had been like, whether she liked it or not.

For the first time in her life, she felt free. Throughout the school year, she and her dark knight always met at the same

discreet, wooded rest area right outside of Rome, off of I-75. These clandestine, fifteen to twenty minute, sexually free interludes transpired once or twice a month.

Karen knew, even before she missed her first period. She massaged her belly and smiled as she tried to picture the love child growing inside of her. Finally, someone who would love her unconditionally, someone who wouldn’t judge her. No one was going to take that feeling away from her.

Nearly two trimesters from the time she missed her first period, a semi-bulging Karen came home from school all excited. This had been the last day of school. Summer vacation was finally here. She couldn’t wait to get to Atlanta to tell her man, James. The news was to be a surprise for his twenty-third birthday.

As she ran past her big brother’s room, she wished he could see how happy she was. Jonathon was the only man, other than James, whom she truly loved. She sorely missed Jonathon, but thoughts of her dark knight filled the void Jonathon had left when he went off to college at the University of Georgia.

Karen grabbed a large white Snoopy T-shirt and some baggie jeans and went into the bathroom. After undressing, she bent over to turn on the water then slipped and fell into the tub. Her screams brought her mother flying in.

A

Mary just stood at the door with her hand over her mouth while Karen pulled her naked body up from the tub. A single tear ran down Mary’s face. Her eyes saw what her mind had trouble comprehending. With her hand over her mouth, staring at her daughter’s belly, without warning Mary Elizabeth Parker fainted.

Karen struggled, but finally reached the phone in her room and called the family physician.

Dr. Monroe assured Karen that he’d be right over. On his way to the Parker Estate, he called Dalton in Atlanta.

Two hours later, Mary, mildly sedated, was sleeping in a private bed at Rome General Hospital.

On the way to the hospital, Karen had confided in the doctor. “I feel like the walls are closing in on me, Doc. My whole life, I’ve let my

mother mold me into what she wanted me to be. She ain’t never gave me a say in anything. It’s like I’m a robot. ‘Karen, walk with your back arched. Karen, brush your hair to the back. Karen, never leave the home with a frown on your face.’ Doc, I love my family but they smother me. Dad’s never around and Mom’s around too much,” Karen ranted.

“Karen, I love you like you’re my own. Heck, I delivered you. I’ve known you long enough to know that something else is bothering you. I’m not only your doctor, I’m your friend.” He patted her gently on the shoulder. “You can talk to me. Whatever you tell me, it stays right here,” Dr. Monroe said as he pointed to the ground, “That is, unless you say otherwise.”

And the damn burst. She told him everything about her lover James, the pregnancy, the whole soap-opera drama.

A few minutes after leaving Karen, Dr. Monroe spotted Dalton at the end of the corridor bending down to retrieve something from the vending machine.

He placed his hand on Dalton’s shoulder. “Dalton.” The doctor sighed. “I’m afraid you have another situation on your hands.”

“And what would that be?” The doctor contemplated for a moment. “Spit it out, Marty,” Dalton said. “Karen’s pregnant.” “Excuse me?” Dalton said, shaking his head. “I gave her my word. I told her I’d keep this to myself, but I can’t. She is

just a child. Dal--” “Gotdammit, Marty, did you just friggin’ tell me my seventeen-year-old

daughter was pregnant?”

Dalton shook his head before placing a palm over his face. “I can’t believe she’d do this to me. I will frigging kill her.”

“Now, Dalton, you should sit down and calm yourself.” Dalton wore a tight, closed-mouth smile as he spoke. “I am frigging calm. Do

you hear or see me making a scene? Am I not speaking in a frigging calm voice?”

“No.” Dr. Monroe shook his head. I mean yes. I am just saying that Karen’s feelings should be your main concern now.”

“Feelings! What frigging feelings? I own her feelings. I feed and clothe her. I give her everything and she repays me like this? Marty, I need an abortion.” Jonathon grabbed the doctor’s arm. I trust that you will do the procedure immediately.”

“Dalton, I’ve been your family doctor for nineteen years. Anything for Jonathon and Karen. How does tomorrow sound?”

“Yesterday would be better, but tomorrow will have to do,” Dalton said. “A close friend of mine runs a backdoor clinic in Atlanta. We’ll have to get

there early for some preliminary tests. I’ll perform the procedure. It’s pretty simple. It shouldn’t take more than a couple hours.”

Dr. Monroe suggested Mary stay overnight until her test results came back from the lab.

“After all, she took a pretty hard fall,” the doctor said. Dalton and Karen drove home without a word between either of them. As soon as they were in the confines of the Parker home, Dalton exploded, “I

don’t want to know how it happened or how long you’ve been whoring. What I do want to know is who’s the frigging father of the bastard?”

Karen stood in front of her father crying, wishing Jonathon was there. “Karen Parker, do you hear me? I asked you who-the-hell-is-the-father?

Tellmerightthisfriggin’minute,” Dalton said while shaking her as he strained his vocal chords and her eardrums.

“Let me go. I’ll show you,” Karen shouted. She kneeled to gather her open wallet that had spilled from her purse. She

stood up with her back arched and handed him a picture of her and James taken last summer at Lake Lanier.

Dalton’s face turned bright orange. Dalton grabbed Karen’s shoulders. “What is it with you two. First your dumb

ass brother, and now you. What, you ain’t good enough for a white man.” He

slapped her before continuing, “Whore! You will abort the son of a bitch, tomorrow. “

After another hard slap, Dalton punched his daughter in the stomach. “How could you do this to me?” he hollered while slapping her face

repeatedly. Once he was exhausted, he went upstairs to bed, leaving his crying daughter balled up and bleeding in a corner in front of the great room’s fireplace.

All night his ears played tricks on him. He got up and closed his bedroom window so that he wouldn’t hear the night cry. He got up and put a pillow under the four corners of the bed to stop the bed from crying. He even had to turn the ceiling fan off to stop the crying of the four wooden blades. It was a nightmare.

Dalton was red-eyed and weary when he finally decided to get out of bed. It was so early the chickens hadn’t even gotten up. He dragged himself from the bed to the hall and from the hall to the stairs, like he had done in the past. He had to warm some milk on the stove. He was halfway down the steps when he remembered his daughter was not seventeen weeks, but seventeen years old. His baby was a young woman.

“Oh God, what have I done?” he asked. He dragged himself to her room to apologize. He opened her cracked

bedroom door, and walked in. Nothing. He even went up into the attic where she and Jonathon use to play. After

coming to the conclusion that Karen was gone, Dalton sat down on his daughters ruffled pink canopy bed and put his elbows on his knees. He could cover his face with his hands, but not the shame he had in his heart.

*****

“Hey, big brother.” “What do you need, Karen?” Jonathon asked. “Damn, can’t I be calling you just to say hi?” “You never do.” “Never do what?” she asked. “Call just to say hi. Anyway, what’s Ozzie and Harriet up to? Don’t tell me

you told them…Karen, you there?” She let out a deep sigh. “I’m here.” “Oh shit! You told them.”

“Sorta kinda. Harriet walked in the bathroom while I was in the process of unsuccessfully breaking my neck, by way of falling into the tub. She saw my bulge, fainted, and Ozzie went ape shit. I left home. I’m staying with James in Atlanta, end of story.”

“Did that asshole put his hands on you? Cause if he did---” “Jonathon, you know good and well Dad wouldn’t find nor waste the time

jumping on me. You know how cool and in control he is.” “Karen, the man is evil. I’ve seen Dad flip the fuck out.” “I’m fine, big brother. As long as I have you to protect me I’ll be fine. You

just graduate and become a big-time lawyer so you can take care of me. Gotta go. A line is forming at the pay phone and James is getting restless in this heat. Love you, bye.”

CHAPTER 11

his is some bullshit. I been hustling for seven, eight years. I ain’t never caught a case. I couldn’t believe this shit was happening to me on my twenty-first birthday. Shit. Them bitch-ass black cats ain’t never fucked with me before. Damn. What the hell was I gon’ do now? Them funky mothafuckas tried to break my wrists with them damn cuffs. They left me outside the BP gas station in cuffs beside their car for at least an hour for everybody to see. Now, everybody know my damn business. Coltrane waited in the interrogation room at the Cobb County police station.

“You can do what you gotta do, ’cause I don’t know jack and I ain’t saying jack. You got that, Jack.” Coltrane spat as he wiggled in the too-tight handcuffs.

“Albert Coltrane Jones?” a detective said, as he walked around the interrogation room. “Trane, they call you? Well, Trane, we been watching you choo-choo around town in your fancy cars. You dumb dope dealers are all the same. To find one of your kind, all I have to do is go after the cars that have wheels and paint jobs that are worth more than the car. But deep down inside, you’re all the same--drug dealing punks?”

The fat, light-skinned, close-to-white, freckled-face clown wasn’t going to bait me.

“Oh, now you wanna remain silent. I guess you think you’re hard. Let’s see if some big buck murderer can soften you up for me. Let’s see what a night in the Thunder Dome does for you. We’ll see how hard or how tight,” the detective grabbed his butt cheeks, “you are tomorrow.”

The only thing Coltrane had on his my mind was getting to a phone. Walking down the county jail corridor to a holding cell, Coltrane said to his

self, “I’m messed up for a minute, no doubt, but I’m paid. I had to get me a mouthpiece and buy my way up out of here.”

Coltrane sat on a steel bench in a pissy, one-toilet holding tank for three hours. One of his many cell mates was a Hispanic cat who screamed and hollered some Spanish shit out of the small barred window for damn near an hour before the sheriffs came and dragged him out. Then, it was crackheads, drunks, and some old wife-beater in the cell with him. Over the next several sleepless hours, he watched every last one get out. Some made bail. Some were bound over to the county jail, better known as the Thunder dome. He just waited, resting with a

T

flattened roll of toilet paper behind his head as he stretched out on the cold and nasty stainless steel bench.

“Jones, let’s go.” He rolled off the bench and flew out the cell. For the second time he was

fingerprinted. “Strip down.” “Huh?” he grunted. “Strip down. Leave your clothes on the floor beside you,” the deputy

commanded. He felt like he was on one of those docu-cop shows. “Palms out. Lift your arms. Raise your sack. Turn around. Bend over. Spread

your cheeks. Cough.” He was ashamed, standing on a cold white floor playing a sadistic game of

Simon-Says--without the Simon. They sprayed him down with God knows what before he was forced to go into a small room and shower.

“Put these on.” “Man, I can’t wear these draws.” Coltrane pointed to the crotch. “Look at

these stains,” he held the shit-stained white boxers up for the deputy to see. “No problem.” The deputy smiled. “You can go back to the holding tank until

we go to Macy’s and get you some new ones.” Smart ass. “A’ight, man, but this is some foul shit,” he said as he put on the

used boxers, a too-tight T-shirt, an orange Dekalb County Jail-issue jumpsuit, mis-matched light blue tube socks, and some brown plastic shower shoes.

Outfitted with a bedroll and toiletries, Coltrane was ushered through a maze of electronic doors, bars, and metal detectors. He felt like he was being led to the electric chair.

The more inmate noise he heard, the closer he knew he was getting to hell. A minute later the electronic doors closed. He stood in the middle of the

common area looking around. There were two tiers of cells and to the left of him, there were paper thin, gray mattresses lined up against the wall.

“Coltrane, baby. What up, my nigga?” One of his cats from way back hollered out.

J-Lo and Coltrane had attended high school together. He was always down when Coltrane needed some rims or an Alpine radio stolen.

“What they got you fo’, baby?” “Dog, I’m driving down Boulevard, on the way to serve one of my dudes,

when Five-O hems me up with four birds.”

“Ah, man, shoot,” he waved, “that ain’t shit. Long as it was powder and not hard, you alright. This your first case, ain’t it?”

“And my last,” he shot back. “About time you popped that cherry, nigga,” he held his hand out. “Nigga,

ain’t you gon’ give a nigga some dap?” Coltrane slapped five with him. “But on the real though., the feds will probably pick yo case up, and shit, this

being your first time, you might do three, four years…” “Three, four years?” I said. “Ah, bay-boy that’s bedtime. That’s barely enough time to get your mind

right and plan your next lick,” he said. Four years. His heart dropped down to his feet. “Man, fuck that. I gotta call

this mouthpiece I got a line on. I ain’t trynna do a day in this bitch.” he said to J-Lo. “What you in for, Lo?” Coltrane asked.

“Man, you know Big Boy?” J-Lo asked. “You talkin’ ’bout Big Boy got the black hardtop, freaked-out six four

Impala?” “Yeah, that be him. I had been scopin’ the nigga out for a month. Peep

game.” J-lo signaled for me to come closer. Quietly he said, “I finds out where the nigga keeps his stash, right? And I goes up in this crib like SWAT and shit. On my way out, he walks in gun up, balls down. What I s’ppose to do?” J-lo shrugged. “A nigga had to do what a nigga had to do.”

“Nah.” Coltrane shook his head. “You didn’t.” “Hell if I didn’t. I had to bust that nigga, and I had to make sure he wouldn’t

ever get up. I ain’t trynna be looking over my shoulder for a nigga I shot. Shit, you know how I roll, Trane. I ain’t trippin’ though. My public pretender got me a deal. I plead to second degree manslaughter, I’ll do 3 to 7. With my past, I’ll pull at least six, but shit, you know six years ain’t nothin’ for a soldier like your boy.” He slapped his chest.

Prison was a second home for many young bloods like J-Lo, it was accepted. No big deal for them.

Even though Coltrane was thrown in with killers and hardcore convicts, he was cool. J-Lo’s popularity made him popular. While most inmates had to sleep on the cold concrete floor, Coltrane’s V.I.P. status got him a cell with a bed, forcing some square wife-killer to pack up and move to the floor.

The next morning, Coltrane made a couple phone calls and got the name and number of the mouthpiece that the little white freak, Karen Parker hipped him to

way back when. A cat named Jonathon Parker. Supposed to be her brother or some shit.