Free A Hustler's Wife by Nikki Turner Page A

her. Pulling no punches, Yarni relayed all of this to Des in a letter.
    When Des received the mail from Yarni he was furious. He could not believe the stunt his mother had pulled. He loved his mother more than anything on Earth, but his mother was dead wrong and out of order. He couldn't understand why she even took the furniture anyway! What did she do with the furniture?
    Des knew his mother didn't need any furniture? He had just brought her new furniture a couple of months before. He couldn't believe how humble Yarni was concerning the incident with his mother. The way Yarni handled the episode made him love and respect her even more. At the same time, he could not allow his mother to just totally disrespect his wife in such a way. He wouldn't let Yarni disrespect his mother either.
    Down in the city jail, the inmates had a phone list, but Des didn't care about anybody's phone time, he had calls to make.
    The first one was to his mother. He stressed to her that he was very disappointed with her. He asked her where she got the gall to put her nose in his business? He also stressed to her that until she made the situation right with Yarni, she could not be a part of his life.
    He then called Slim to make sure he got the rest of his money from off the street. He instructed Slim to take whatever money he collected to Gloria. Familiar with the old saying, "out of sight, out of mind," he wasn't expecting all his money to be straight. When somebody goes to jail and is not present to get their own money, the money is always short. He also told Castro, his other right hand man, to give Yarni an allowance of $300 a week.
    And then, the final call was to Gloria. She answered.
    "Hello?"
    "Hello?" She heard an automated operator. "This is C&P
    with a collect call from, Des. The automated voice continued, "If you do not wish to accept this call, please hang up now. To accept this call, press zero now." Gloria hurried and pressed zero. The automated voice responded after she pressed zero.
    "Your call is being connected, thank you for using C&P."
    "Hello, Des. How are you under these crazy circumstances?" She asked with a sincere voice.
    "Honestly, Gloria, I am fine. I am just a little worried about Yarni, that's all."
    "Yarni will be fine, Des. I promise you that."
    "I know you will make sure of that Gloria, but I have a favor to ask of you."
    "Anything, Des."
    "I need you to promise me that please, Gloria, by no means will you let Yarni get sidetracked. Even though I am locked up now, she still has to stay focused on pursuing her dream to become a lawyer."
    "Oh, I have every intention on doing so," Gloria said without hesitation.
    "I am also aware that the seventy-five G's that I had given you to hold for her college education, well, that's not going to be enough. I am going to need you to take out some loans to cover the difference."
    "I'd already banked on that anyway since the trial was rigged up. I was prepared to do that."
    "My man, Slim, is going to bring you some money later today that he's collected for me."
    "O.K."
    "Gloria, nothing has changed, I still want Yarni to have the best of everything. At the same time, you've got to be very frugal with that money. She is going to have to tone down her spending." Had he not been in such a solemn position, in prison, he might have chuckled at Yarni's spending habits.
    "I know, Des. I will take care of everything."
    "I know you will, Gloria, but you know I worry about her. I want to thank you for getting the house addition for her. I really appreciate it.
    "Des, say no more. I need you to do me a favor."
    "What?"
    "Never give up hope and always remember, tough times don't last, but tough people do." This was a special man, incarcerated or not, and she didn't want him to get lost in the crooked system.
    "Man, Gloria, I got mad love for you."
    "Yeah, son-in-law, I do for you too." He and Gloria had their ups and downs, but overall he knew he could definitely trust Gloria.
    Slim only