MEGAN FOX, OMEGA SUPREME

Gotta Get Away

    When Melissa finally returns, she's alone and my heart immediately sinks. There's no cop with her which tells me the answer was obviously no, I can't make another phone call. Who did I think I was? Don't I watch movies and TV?

    She approaches the holding cell wearing a strange expression on her pretty Taylor Swift/Nicole Kidman face. I can't read it, but she doesn't look happy. I figured it had to be bad news, so I tried to prepare myself for it. By the time she reaches me I suddenly notice that she's holding something in her left hand. The folder with my info in it, she'd already put back into the leather bag hanging from her right shoulder.

    So you're a lefty, huh beautiful? I think nonsensically, as she comes to a stop right in front of me. Some genius who obviously hadn't noticed her before; at least, not until she was leaving (probably one of the jackasses who thought this was their living room they were standing in, and not a horrible situation), yelled out: "Holy shit, that white bitch is sexy as hell! Got damn! I'd tear that fat booty up!"

    Attorney Melissa had hips, too. What some niggas call African girl hips; but the genius couldn't possibly see her donkey ass from the front. So, he must have seen her as she walked away from me. Judging by the raucous laughter which ensued, you'd swear it was Showtime At The Apollo. And he was Kevin Hart or Chris fucking Rock.

    Talk about exaggeration; it really wasn't that funny a comment. Hell, it wasn't funny at all. Nor particularly witty. But I've since learned that ignorance, like misery,  also loves company.

    There's no question Melissa heard that, and knew it was aimed at her. (After all, she's the only white girl in the room; maybe the only one for miles.) Her porcelain clear complexion turned slightly crimson at the cheeks, and I'm not sure if I've ever been more embarrassed for another person, or more angry at a nigga like I was at the clown who'd just said that shit. (Well, maybe Taliek held that honor, and always would.) But, I wanted to apologize for that other asshole's stupidity, yet in the end, remained silent. Acknowledging the remark somehow seemed like the wrong move to me--at first.

    Melissa, for her part, ignored it like a pro. Other than a slight widening of her emerald green eyes, you wouldn't have known anything so derogatory had even been yelled in her direction. In fact, I was so impressed by her cool demeanor (and was still so high and drunk), that I ignored my own better judgment, opened my mouth before my brain could stop me, and said:

    "Don't mind him; it's just that he's never had a rich, beautiful, white chick like you before. So, he's mad at you when he should be mad at himself. Fucking loser."

    And to my eternal relief, Melissa actually smiled. It was a brief thing, like a ray of sunlight momentarily poking through a mass of gray clouds, only to be covered up again, but it did wonders for my currently dismal heart. The craziness of the moment wasn't lost on me either. There I was, locked up, broke, and hung over, yet I was still trying to defend the honor of a female who not only didn't really need it--but probably didn't even want it. At least, not from a hood nigga like me.

     But I was wrong on that score. "Thanks, cutie," she whispered. "I'm far from the world's idea of rich, but I see you're one of the last, huh? Wow. An actual Sir Lancelot."

    I didn't respond, and to this day, I'm not positive what she meant by that. Sometimes, I think I know; then, my mind says I have it all wrong. But the cutie part; well, there's absolutely no misunderstanding that part. I said earlier that most of the niggas in my crew were pretty boys, but I wasn't putting myself in that category. Ain't shit pretty about me, and I can fully accept that. Mainly, because I still got, and get, more than my share of honies.

    Furthermore, all of my homeboys had better situations than I did back then (meaning their conditions at home), but you'd never know it looking from the outside. Few of them took advantage of it the way I would have. And none of them did as much as I did with so little. Truth be told, my life at home was exactly the opposite of theirs.

    "What happened?" I asked Melissa, getting back to business. "Where's the cop? The phone call?"

     I couldn't help glancing down at her hand, and saw what she was holding. I had to blink to make sure of what I was seeing. But it was still there. "What's that--" I began to say, but she quickly cut me off.

    "Stop," she whispered, stepping closer to the bars. "Don't speak, just listen."

    The noise behind me nearly drowned out her soft, pretty voice (Mandy Moore in Tangled--one of my favorite animated flicks which in my opinion is much better than Frozen--sounds just like Melissa), but I could still hear her. She was staring right in my eyes now, and I was staring back in hers. And they really were gorgeous. (Rihanna, the R&B superstar, didn't exist yet, but years later I would think of Melissa when I first saw her cat-like green eyes.)

    "You can make your phone call," she whispered. "But judging by your initial reaction, something tells me you're not expecting to get the money tonight. So, chances are, you're going to be locked up at least until Monday. Take this."

    She thrust her hand through the bars and I immediately took what she held, and slipped it in my pocket. I didn't even glance at it. My eyes never left her face as she said:

    "They checked you thoroughly when you first came in, so there's no way to explain having this when nobody's come to see you since you got here. At least, not tonight. But by Monday, you can get one of your friends to show up, and that will be how you got it. Okay? But make your call anyway, because you never know. If your family bails you out today, you can call me and we'll meet somewhere. You can return it then. If not, you'll only do one day in general population, and you'll be free Monday morning."

    For a moment, I was speechless. I felt tears wanting to come, but I held them back through sheer force of will. Was this really happening?
   
    "What I just did could get me fired," she went on. "I'm trusting in your discretion. Keep this to yourself no matter how strong the urge to tell someone. I'm not rich, like I said, but eighty thousand a year's good enough for me. In other words, there's much more where that came from...for the right guy."

    Then, she stepped back from the cell, and said in her normal voice: "Mr. Wolf, someone will be here in a few minutes to escort you to the phones. I'll speak to you again after you've finished."

    And then, she walked away to assist other people. I watched her go, wondering if I was perhaps, somewhere dreaming, and none of the shit which happened that night really even took place. The noise behind me seemed to be getting louder, so I turned on impulse to see what Taliek was doing. Lucky me; the motherfucker was no longer staring at the stone floor.

    No. He was staring at me, and he was grinning.

    Great.