“I miss you too, ma,” he replied. “More than you can imagine, Satin.” His form wavered then became solid again. “Satin, you gotta go back, ma.”
With tear-filled eyes she looked up at him. “I know, baby, but I can come back tomorrow, or the day after.”
He looked down at his All Stars before turning back to Satin. “No, baby, I mean you gotta wake up. This ain’t no life for you, and the more you come here the more of yourself you lose. I can’t let you end up like me.” He motioned toward his body, which was starting to take on the clarity of a bootleg movie.
“I won’t leave you, Lou-Loc.” She tried to grab hold of his Dickies shirt, but her fingers passed right through. “Why can’t I stay here with you?”
“Because you gotta water the seed, ma.” He tried to touch her stomach, but his body was rapidly losing substance.
“Water the seed, what are you talking about?” she asked his fading form.
“You can’t sleep anymore, Satin, sleep is for the dead. This place”-he motioned at the fading scenery around him-“it ain’t for you, baby. Life is for you.”
“Baby, a life without you ain’t a life,” she pleaded. “I wanna stay here with you, Lou-Loc. Just about everybody I ever loved is dead, ain’t nothing out there for me. I don’t wanna lose you too.”
“Baby, as long as you water the seed you can never lose me, don’t forget that,” he said before his form faded completely.
SATIN AWOKE with a start. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for the mountains and the waterfall, but there were only the dull hospital walls, and the morning sun coming through the picture window. Lou-Loc’s words again rang through her mind and the meaning suddenly became clear. With a trembling hand Satin touched her stomach and felt the faintest hint of a flutter.
chapter 7
AS SOON as Sharell stepped off the elevator she heard the shouts and sounds of furniture being overturned. A burly orderly rushed past her so swiftly that he almost knocked her over. Down the hall she saw a small cluster of people gathered around Satin’s room. An orderly stepped inside, but immediately backpedaled out, followed by a lamp, which shattered against the hallway wall.
“What’s going on here?” Sharell asked as she approached the duty nurse. Her youthful face wore a worried expression.
“Step back please, miss, we’re dealing with a situation,” the nurse told her as she pulled a syringe from her pocket along with a small glass bottle. Her hands were shaking so bad that she almost dropped the bottle when she tried to slip the needle through the corked top.
“I’m Sharell Baker, and that’s my sister in there.” Sharell tried to step around the nurse so that she could see into the room, but one of the orderlies blocked her path. He was a thick-necked cat whose arm and neck were covered in tattoos.
“I can’t let you in there, ma’am,” he said in a bass voice. “It’s too dangerous. Ms. Angelino attacked one of my people a few minutes ago.” He motioned to the splatters of blood on the floor that she hadn’t noticed before.
“Attacked an orderly? The last time I was here she could barely feed herself, let alone be a danger to anyone.” Sharell looked from the orderly to the nurse for an explanation.
“Tell that to the young man who’s downstairs getting his hand examined.” The nurse folded her arms over her small breasts. “Ms. Angelino came out of her stupor some time this morning and when the orderly went in to administer her medication she attacked him with a pencil.”
“Jesus.” Sharell covered her mouth in shock.
“Ms. Baker, I’m just as shocked as you are, but it still doesn’t change the fact that she’s become a danger to herself and my staff. She has to be sedated.” She held up the syringe that was now filled with a greenish fluid.
“Wait, can I try and talk to her first?” Sharell asked.
“Can’t do it, Ms.,” the tattooed orderly spoke up. “If you were to go in there and something happened we’d be held responsible, and I ain’t trying to lose my job.” He folded his arms, letting her know that it was nonnegotiable. It was just then that she spotted the six-pointed star tattooed on his elbow, with two numbers crowning it.
“Can I speak with you for a minute… in private?” Sharell asked politely. The orderly gave her a distrustful look, but agreed to hear her out.
“Make it quick lady,” he said, leading her off to the side. The nurse gave him a look, but he motioned that he had it under control. “What’s up?” he asked when they were out of earshot.
“Where’re you from?” Sharell asked, slipping into the venacular she’d often heard Gutter use.
He gave her a quizzical look. “The Bronx, why?”
“Young man, I’m not here to give you grief or jeopardize your job, but I really don’t have time to play. Now, where’re you from?” She nodded toward the tattoo.
The orderly absently placed his hand over the tattoo. “Seven-Duce gangster, but I’m not in the life anymore,” he said just above a whisper. She could clearly see he was lying, but it wasn’t her place to judge.
“Listen, have you ever heard of Gutter?” she asked.
The orderly lowered his eyes. “Yeah.”
“That’s my husband, and the woman in there is his sister.”
The man snapped his head up and looked at her with fear-filled eyes. “Listen, lady, I don’t want any problems, I’m just trying to do my job.” He raised his hands in surrender.
“I don’t doubt that, but like I said, that’s Gutter’s family, and I’d hate to think how he’d feel if something happened that could’ve potentially been stopped.” She looked him directly in the eye. “Just give me a minute to see if I can calm her down before y’all run up in there. I’d look at it as a personal favor.”
The orderly stood there and pondered it for a minute. Everyone, Crip or Blood, knew just who Gutter was and what he was about. If the patient truly was Gutter’s family and something happened to her there was no doubt in his mind that he was a dead man walking. Though he valued his job, he valued his life more.
“A’ight,” he told her. The orderly looked over at the nurse and motioned that it was okay to let Sharell in. “You got five minutes, and we do what we gotta do if she tweaks again,” he warned.
“Thank you so much.” She took one of his massive hands in hers. Sharell hurried to the doorway only to be stopped by the nurse.
“Terrence, are you crazy?” she shouted at the orderly. “If somebody finds out we let her in there all our asses are gonna be fired! I got kids to feed and I need my job.”
“Trish”-he took her firmly by the arm and moved her out of Sharell’s way-“I got this. Give her a minute.” Trish started to protest, but the warning look Terrence gave her kept her silent. Reluctantly she allowed Sharell to enter the room.
Sharell stepped around them and entered the room. She was totally taken aback when she saw Satin, pacing near the window, with a crazed look in her eyes and a bloody pencil in her hand. “Satin?” Sharell called to her.
“I want to go home!” she shouted. “What am I doing here? Why won’t they let me go home?”
“Satin, calm down baby. I’m here,” Sharell said, stepping closer, but not close enough to taste the end of the pencil.
Satin turned her animal-like glare on Sharell. For a minute it looked like she was going to attack, but her eyes softened when she recognized Gutter’s girlfriend. “Sharell, why are they keeping me here? Why won’t they let me go home?”
“Baby, you’re sick. They’ve been treating you here since the shooting. Don’t you remember?”
Satin rocked on her heels for a minute then continued her pacing. “I want to go home, Sharell, I can’t stay here. Lou-Loc says I have to water the seed.”
If Sharell wasn’t convinced that Satin was insane before, she was then. Lou-Loc had been dead for months so it was impossible for him to have told her anything. “Satin, Lou-Loc is dead. There’s no way he could’ve told you-”
“No, no, no!” Satin threw her breakfast tray against the wall, painting it with processed eggs. “He’s not dead,
