Free The Apostles by Y. Blak Moore Page B

cell phone. I would let that nigga …”
    Sakawa drifted off into her own world, ignoring China. She thought,
Vee is the damn reason that my fucking man is out of his damn mind. Things used to be perfect with me and Wayne.
She thought of the engagement ring in her dresser drawer with the two-carat heart-shaped diamond.
We was gone get married and move to Atlanta and open up a business or two. Them niggas took the money we had saved up for our house. Wayne was ready to retire and have kids. Shit, I knew that everything was going too perfect. Now because of Vee I'm right back where I started—broke and looking for a way out of the damn ghetto. And this high-ass bitch sitting over here talking about I should holla at Vee. Shit, Vee already owe me. Wait a minute, that's right. That motherfucka do owe me. She said it, Wayne was just a soldier, Vee the damn general. I can take way more from that nigga than they took from Wayne. That nigga stupid too, plus he used to fuckin' wit these slum-ass bitches. I got some game for his ass. Yeah, I'mma take everything that nigga got. That should be payment enough for him fucking up my man and our future. I told Wayne stop fucking with them niggas, they petty. You can't get nowhere fuckin' with no loose-square buying-ass niggas. Shit …
    “Sakawa James!” China Doll shouted.
    Sakawa looked over at China Doll. “Girl, why is you hollering in my damn house like you crazy?”
    “Bitch, you musta caught a contact high or something. I was sitting here talking to you and yo ass drifted off into space. I was telling you that you betta holla at that nigga Vee. Shit, that nigga got that new Lexus, the 430, I think. And got a Excursion with all them TVs, DVD players, video games—all that shit. That nigga got some paper. You better get that money, girl.”
    Slyly Sakawa said, “I just might listen to what the nigga got to say next time he try to holla.”
    “You better, bitch, because it's all about the paper in thenew millennium. Shit, I tell ‘em, spend a gee on me, you can pee on me. I needs my paper. Shit, if he got the scratch, we can have a wrestling match. A bitch like me is high maintenance. I need to—”
    “Girl, shut yo ass up and go in the bathroom and get that air freshener from under the sink. You got my whole damn house smelling like weed.”

Juvenile criminal court Judge Geneva Sehorn looked down from the imposing bench at the boy. He looked like every other Black man-child that was dragged in front of her—poor and lost. As a Black woman she supposed that she should have felt some iota of mothering instinct for these ghetto spawn, but she didn't. In them she always saw the faces of the two boys, high off of happy sticks, who had broken into her parents' home, killed her father, and then taken turns raping her and her mother.
    “Your Honor,” the juvenile court state's attorney said, “this young man is a serious threat to society. The charges that he is facing are of an extremely grave nature. The unlawful possession and concealment of a firearm by a minor. Also we have upgraded the previous charge of assault with a deadly weapon to attempted murder. Your Honor, though the defendant cannot be charged as an adult, the state would like to pursue the maximum penalty for these charges.”
    Judge Sehorn pointed her gavel at the public defender and the boy. “How does the defendant plead to these charges?”
    The boy's public defender thumbed through her yellow legal pad, then stood. Ms. Tiena Hernandez was a pretty, petite Latin American woman with shoulder-length reddish-brown hair. She was also in need of a vacation. Before she opened her mouth she knew that her case was lost. Sehorn had that look on her face that she had come to recognize. That look that said that no matter what Tiena said, the judge had already made up her mind, and that it wasn't going to go
well for her client. Judge Sehorn was hiding something serious in her past—something that made her hate young