Something bad had transpired in Baltimore many years ago. Something so terrible it caused her to flee the city in fear of her life. People had been killed in real life. That surely wasn’t a dream. Netta and Tone had assassinated Black on his drug block. While making their escape, his brother Stink had caught up to their vehicle on a motorcycle and shot and killed Tone at the traffic light. Mimi was killed by Netta, in retaliation for setting up Mann to be kidnapped and killed by Black. It was a deadly domino effect where all the dominoes had fallen but one. Netta was the sole survivor.
It was just a vicious circle of violence and revenge that led to multiple murders. Yet Netta was the sole survivor. She cherished every day of her life because she knew just how easily it all could have been taken away.
Netta locked eyes with the cab driver in the mirror. The lost look in her eyes was a telltale sign that she wasn’t as alert as she should have been.
“Hey, what’s goin’ on?” Netta replied, needing clarity.
It was then and only then that Netta realized that she had been dreaming. But it had felt so real to her. For Netta, it was impossible not to recall the dream with vividness and not obsess about what she had done to trigger it all. She cringed at a couple of mental images of the various murders. She hated the fact that her imagination was running wild at the moment. She couldn’t control her thoughts, so they became an unavoidable burden. Her dream had painted a very different version of herself; Netta was very vulnerable at the moment. If she couldn’t handle these demons, then she wasn’t any good to anyone else, including herself.
She was thankful to still be alive. There was no way, under any circumstance, that she would kill herself. Once again her past had haunted her. It was something that she had overcome, but not something she could easily forget.
“I’m driving you to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for a flight back to Baltimore. We were in the middle of a conversation,” the cab driver admitted, “when you must have dosed off. The only reason I woke you was because we’re getting close.”
“Oh, wow,” Netta replied. “I’m sorry. I’ve had some rough nights these past few days. I guess everything must have caught up with me. It’s a long story. Probably would bore you to death.”
The cab driver replied, “Long stories that people don’t want to talk about are never boring.”
You could say that again, Netta thought.
What the cab driver had shared with Netta was real helpful. She was still shaking off the suicidal thoughts from the dream. She was still having a hard time believing that her dream wasn’t real. Lately, she had been wondering how life would have turned out if Tone hadn’t been murdered. She wondered how life would have been had they had a chance to raise their child together. Would she even be in this predicament now?
Netta was feeling very disappointed. She wished she could turn back the hands of time and do a few things over. She wished the man upstairs would grant her a do-over. She’d gladly take it. However, as things stood, she knew that wasn’t going to happen, it was all wishful thinking. In her lifetime she had learned to live with both the disappointments and the regrets.
“At least from my point of view,” the man explained, “life can be physically and emotionally draining at times. But God never places a burden on us heavier than we can bear. They say God gives his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers.”
There was a long stretch of silence. Netta looked out the window as the airport slowly began to come into view.
Netta didn’t bother to comment. She knew that his statement was a lie. Life had beaten her down so many times, thrown her all kinds of curve balls that she wondered just how she had survived it all.
Netta sat quietly in the backseat of the cab, lost in thought. She scrunched up her forehead as if she had a lot on her mind. She looked at the small sleeping figure sitting next to her. She was more concerned with his future than she was for her own. In the darkness of the cab her son had her undivided attention. Netta took a deep breath and sighed.
Instinctively, she pulled her son close, kissing him gently on his head. He was not just her son, but also her only friend. He was Netta’s reason for being. Her boy felt like a blessing, a gift God had bestowed on her for taking her man. She looked down at her love-child, remembering the baby she had carried to term. There was an indivisible connection between them, a bond that death couldn’t break. She loved her son so deeply, more so than she had ever loved his father. Just the memory of Big Tone brought her back to ten years ago. To a time when she thought that she would have him in her life forever. That was ancient history now. She would do well to forget him.
Now it was all about Anthony Thompson, Jr. That is who she was living for. Not too long ago this type of love was unfathomable. The only emotional thing that life had made her experience on a consistent basis was pain.
The boy had possessed the physical features of his deceased father, Tone. It was unbelievable just how much of his father’s traits had been passed on to him. Netta began to wonder had her son’s disease been genetically passed down from his father. At the moment it was too soon to know. However, what she did know was, she was headed back to Baltimore, to the world-renowned John Hopkins Medical Center, to find out.
It was ironic how her journey, which began in Baltimore, was leading her right back home. This time under totally different circumstances. Her
