Hero

Chapter Twenty-One

Adelle struggled to wake, trying desperately to clear the fog from her mind left over from the Demerol. Her head was pounding. She looked around for Natsinet but the room was empty. She had at least a few minutes to herself.

She’d been awake through most of Natsinet’s confrontation with Rachael last night, feigning unconsciousness while listening to the nurse rage about her childhood growing up bi-racial. She’d luckily been spared Rachael’s murder by the shot of Demerol the nurse had given her. But she of all people knew what Natsinet was capable of, so she did not expect that Rachael had survived the encounter. That meant it was once again up to her to somehow save herself.

There was moaning coming from the other room. It sounded as if someone were in pain. Heavy footfalls approached Adelle’s bedroom. The rhythm was halting and uncertain, like someone staggering or limping. The door to Adelle’s bedroom opened and Mike Simmons, Nancy Edward’s boy from down the street who Tonya used to play with when she was little, stepped into her room, one hand clutching his stomach, which was saturated in blood. A steady stream of red dripped from between his fingers as more blood pumped from the wound.

“You’ve got to get out of here, Mrs. Smith. We’ve got to get you out of here. That nurse is crazy. She tried to kill me.”

He walked over to Adelle’s bed and tried to lift her before almost collapsing.

“I’m sorry,” He panted, his huge form leaning its entire weight on her bed. His heavily muscled arms held onto the bed rails for support.

Adelle shuddered at the thought of what Big Mike had been through. She had no idea he was even in the apartment. She assumed that Tonya must have asked him to watch out for her. Obviously, he’d witnessed what was going on and tried to save her, only to be attacked by Natsinet instead.

Where is she? Did he kill her?

Adelle tried to look around Mike into the living room but his tremendous girth blocked her view. She hoped that he had managed to kill Natsinet. She no longer had any desire to understand the woman. She only wanted her dead.

Mike’s breathing was labored, raspy.

“I’m sorry. I feel so weak. I’m bleeding like a damn stuck pig. That crazy bitch stabbed me. I can’t believe she stabbed me.”

He stood up again and scooped his huge arms beneath Adelle’s legs and shoulders. This time he did manage to lift her. He carried her to the bedroom door, teetering as if he were about to pass out any minute. Adelle was afraid he would drop her and fall right on top of her. Then she saw Natsinet, rising from the living room floor. She looked weak and unsteady, tiny next to Mike’s massive form, but when her eyes fixed on Adelle’s there was a rage in them that made her look ten times more dangerous than her rescuer.

“Stay the fuck away from me you crazy bitch!” Mike’s voice sounded weak, far off. He was fading quickly.

“You’re not taking her anywhere.”

Natsinet knelt and picked up a knife from the floor and stepped in front of Mike, blocking his path to the front door. Still holding Adelle with his left arm, Big Mike reached his right hand into his waistband and pulled out a gun, something bigger than Adelle’s .45 caliber. Natsinet paused and backed away. Mike’s hand wavered and the gun swung back and forth as he tried to hold Adelle with one hand and aim the gun with the other. He seemed disoriented from the loss of blood and was having a hard time aiming the gun. Natsinet smiled and stepped back into his path as he took a step forward.

“Don’t do this, Natty,” Adelle said.

“My fucking name is Natsinet!” Natsinet roared and then paused, looking at Adelle curiously, eyes wide in astonishment. “You just spoke.”

“Parlodel. Rachael gave it to me. It’s for Parkinson’s patients. It helps improve speech. She said it would work for stroke patients too.” Adelle’s words came out slow and slightly slurred but they were still understandable. She could talk again.

“I know what the fuck it does! How the hell did you get it?” Natsinet looked furious. Rachael had gotten something over on her and she clearly did not like it.

“She gave it to me when she was working.”

“Did you speak to her? Did you fucking tell her about me?”

“No. This is the first time I’ve spoken. But it doesn’t matter now does it? I know you killed her.”

Natsinet smiled.

“I cut her fat ass up and put her in the freezer next to your leftovers.”

“I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work.”

Natsinet put one hand on her hip, still holding the knife in the other. She raised one eyebrow, that devilish grin still scarring her face.

“Oh yeah, and what is it I’m trying to do?”

“You’re Black, at least half Black, and no matter what you do to me or how many other Black people you kill, you’ll still be Black. You can’t kill that. My blood isn’t going to wash that away and neither is Mike’s.”

“Are you trying to do some kind of psychoanalysis on me now? You think you know me?”

She took a step forward. Adelle was hoping she could get the woman to move even closer so that Mike could shoot her without missing. The way his gun hand kept dropping and waving around she wasn’t sure he could even see anymore. At least if Natsinet was two feet in front of him he wouldn’t have to aim. All he’d have to do is pull the trigger.

“I heard what you told Rachael about your father.”

Natsinet paused.

“You don’t know shit about my father.”

“I know he was a proud Black man who worked hard trying to give you a good life and that he died senselessly and that it wasn’t your fault or anyone else’s except the guy who pulled the trigger. I know you can’t bring him back. I know how much it hurt you when he and your mother split up.”

“You’d better shut up now. Just stop it right now!”

Natsinet pointed the knife at Adelle, itching to cut the old woman’s throat with it, but Mike still held the gun between them.

“Get out of our way or I swear I’ll put a cap in you.”

Big Mike could barely keep the gun steady and he was starting to wobble, slowly teetering back and forth. The wounds in his gut continued to pump a dark viscous red, soaking his shirt and jeans. Adelle was pretty sure he had only a few more minutes of consciousness left and if he didn’t get to a hospital he’d be dead in less than an hour. She had to try to talk Natsinet down, get her to let them pass.

“I know how you felt growing up, always feeling different. Feeling like you were somehow inferior when you were around White kids because of the Black blood in your veins. Feeling inferior when you were around Black kids because of the White blood in your veins.”

“I said shut the fuck up!”

“Get the fuck out of our way!” Mike yelled back at Natsinet. He seemed to regain a little of his strength. His grip on Adelle tightened.

Adelle ignored them both and kept talking. Tears began to roll from Natsinet’s eyes, the first genuine emotion Adelle had ever seen the woman display other than anger. She looked as if she were on the verge of a breakdown. Adelle wasn’t sure what would happen when the woman snapped, but she couldn’t see how it could be any worse than the position they were in now.

“Once your dad was dead you chose to identify with the White side of your family because you blamed all of us for your daddy’s death, anyone with a Black face, but the White side of your family didn’t accept you either because they know exactly what you’re trying to deny… that you’re Black too. You’re one of us. We’re your people.”

“I’m not Black! You people aren’t anything like me! I’m not one of you!”

Natsinet started forward, raising the knife when the front door opened and Tonya stepped into the apartment.

Natsinet stopped and looked back, the knife still raised over her head. Tonya looked stunned. She had a freshly bandaged wound on her forehead and she was looking from the bloody knife in Natsinet’s hand to Mike’s blood-soaked shirt, to the gun in his hand, to Adelle cradled in Mike’s arms, slowly slipping from his weakening grasp.

“What the hell is going on here?”

As Natsinet turned towards Tonya, Mike teetered and started to fall, dropping Adelle onto the carpet and dropping the gun, a Desert Eagle .50 caliber semi-automatic, next to her. Adelle hit the ground on her right side, facing the bedroom, and immediately tried to roll over to push herself back up. She lay there on her belly as Tonya tackled Natsinet and the two women hit the ground on the other side of the sofa.

She heard Tonya yell, heard a grunt of pain as a blow was struck. Natsinet screamed. There was a thud as one of them struck the floor.

Adelle didn’t hear the knife clatter to the floor, but she heard the fight that followed. She couldn’t see what was going on because her view was blocked by the sofa in front of her, but she could hear it. She heard a crash and one of her picture frames landed beside her, its edge coated with blood. It was the same one she’d been planning on braining Natsinet with for the past two weeks. She only hoped that the blood on it was from Natsinet and not Tonya.

She tried to hoist herself up, wished she weren’t so helpless now. Amid the struggle, punctuated by yells and the sound of fists striking flesh, Tonya’s voice was clearly audible.

“You fucking bitch, I’m gonna fuck you up!”

“No!” Natsinet yelled.

Frenzied struggle.

Adelle gathered her remaining ounce of strength. If she could only move an arm, pick something up, she could lend her hand in this battle over her life and the life of her daughter and end this once and for all.

Adelle’s fingers trembled as they closed around the Desert Eagle. Her arm was too weak to raise the weapon so she slid it along the carpet until it was pointing underneath the sofa on the other side of which Natsinet and Tonya continued to battle. She squinted through the dust bunnies and misplaced cups and knickknacks beneath the old couch, trying to see the two women on the other side. All she could make out was a tangle of arms and legs. She could hear the sound of flesh smacking against flesh. Hear the grunts, curses, and heavy breaths as they struggled. She knew that Natsinet was wearing a white shirt and Tonya had been wearing something yellow, so she tried to distinguish the two colors and aim at the first flash of white she saw.

“Goddamn bitch!”

It was hard to tell if that was Natsinet or Tonya.

Then, “Noooo!”

Adelle fired.