The soles of my feet fare falling numb, my legs turning into overcooked lines of mushy spaghetti as my sister, best friend, and I search for the hospital entrance. I spot it. Lit up in words painted in the shade of red I imagine decorates all of hell's entirety, I see the single word I'm looking for. Entrance. Running— or sprinting rather— into through his entrance of the hospital, I see people gathering around the entrance. Interested glances rooted in curiosity, wide-eyed stares and nosey noses facing the sky are the least of my interests. Not having supposed to run out of the car the way I do leaves Mike and Ike chasing behind me. I sprint right past the group of staring people. This is not a good time for the public to be sniffing my ass.
As we look for the nearest informational desk. we see a man on a stretcher being rushed around the main floor. Mustard yellow slacks, Stacy Adams loafers polished to perfection, and a gold Rolex on his wrist. I can't make out his face as Aaliyah's hair blocks my visions. She's standing beside me, begging and pleading the woman behind the desk to give her a slither of insight as to where my brother resides in this moment.
Commotion with the man on the gurney. The words of the medic moving him around pierces through my bubble of distress. "We've got a male, age forty-four. His son was shot and he's been hit by a car coming here!" I can't say how but I hear her every word through my ringing ears.
I can feel an angel lean against my left ear, whispering directions that only my heart can make out. I feel compelled to look to the man in the stretcher on my right. My head shoots in his direction, phonics of terror fly out of my mouth with no control the exact moment I recognize the face.
"Dad?" My unsureness has been birthed by disbelief. I don't want to believe this is happening. Pushing through Mike and Ike, I slither away to stand in the open as I await the male to return my gaze. My father stares me in the eyes. "Dad!" I scream as he is already being pushed into the distance of the hallway. Mike pulls me back. I turn back to Alexis and Aaliyah, who are still trying to get information.
The front desk's receptionist is intentionally choosing not to cooperate. Alexis, now, loses the very little bit of cool she could've had left.
Alexis bangs on counter, yelling at what is starting to feel like the top of het lungs. "Listen, I need to know where the fuck Edward Johnson is!" The receptionist reaches for the walkie-talkie when Alexis snatches it from its place on the desk. "No, you're not doing shit until I know where my little brother is!" Ike steps in to pull me away from the situation.
"Are you immediate family?"
"I just fucking said—" Aaliyah has to pull Alexis away. She's losing it.
I step up, pushing them aside as Aaliyah, folds her arms and hysterically cried. "She is, and so am I. We all are." The woman catches a glimpse of my face. Her eyebrows lift and they finally shift between my sister and I. Recognizing this gawk has become a specialty of mine. While I cannot say why its taken her so long, I do know this woman is coming into the know about who I am and what I do for a living. The energy shifts. After realizing who I am, suddenly, she is typing away. "I should be an emergency contact for him," I chime in.
"Uhm, okay..." She gathers a number of clipboards in her hands. "Ms. Lyric, I'll need every visitor in your party to fill out a visitor's form first and present valid government issued ID."
I never thought I'd ever be so happy to be a public figure. I've got to admit... It has it's perks sometimes. The way the sight of my face gets her act together is equally as largely astonishing as it is disgraceful.
Chanel Johnson.
It's the first thing I write and as the pen effortlessly glides across the paper, I can feel my skin itching as I cringe. Damn, I hate my name. The name given to me at birth is the name that got me teased for two years when my family relocated to the northern side of my city. I hated it so much that I eventually started going by Cindy as Aaliyah hyphenated her first and middle name. Now, where the hell does Cindy come from when the starting point is Chanel? I don't know but it got people off of my back. It wasn't until college that I had the freedom to go by my first name. And even then, it was mostly my friends from the Black Student Union who referred to me as such. I was even CJ for my final year.
"Room 219 on the seventh floor is where you will find him. Currently, he's in emergency surgery but you can wait as long as you like," she finally explains.
"Thanks," I mumble, rushing off as I fail to notice the delay in Alexis' movements. She darkly scowls at the receptionist for an extra second, mumbling curses in a state of disgust. They aren't made clear to me until we enter an elevator.
"Dumb bitch–"
"Alexis, let if go." Aaliyah huffs and puffs, wiping the last of her tears. She's grumpy, lowering her patience for Alexis' attitude, but she is scared most of all. It's the fear of the unknown that is driving her insane. Surely, I can understand. As long as they don't say Eddie is dying, I can hang on long enough to check on my father. Aaliyah has to be thinking something similar.
When we get to the room, I see my mother and Uncle Dorian anxiously waiting for Eddie's return. "Nelly saw Daddy back there. Please don't tell me anything bad happened to him," Aaliyah frantically pleads upon entry.
My mind rushes, running a full marathon of circles around my cranium. Listening the room's conversations becomes too much for me. I try to escape. I try to run away to a dream within the clouds as I gaze out the window, into the open parking lot down on the grown. I zone out after learning the core details of today's tragedy.
According to what my mother says, Eddie was at my cousin Junior's house, curtesy of a trip suggested by my cousin Junior as he saw Eddie at my grandmother's South Side home. Eddie goes to that part of the city very rarely but he is always in good hands there. Junior lives closer to the edge of the city. Something went wrong with a crack deal on a nearby corner. They say there was a fight and, somehow, the man identified as the crackhead got the gun. To make matters worse, he couldn't use it quite right. Eddie was one of the first people to be shot with a bullet that didn't have his name on it. When my father found out, he was at Tina's house dropping off my little brother, Johnny. He rushed out of his car so fast that he doesn't notice a taxi speeding down the street and got smacked from behind.
What a life.
When a nurse comes in to tell us that Eddie is on his way out and, for the first six hours after his surgery, the room's maximum visitor count is three people, I am the first person to exit with my bodyguards behind me. I'm going to go call Prince with the hopes that he isn't busy. Right now, I just want to hear his voice and know he's there for him, the same way I'd call Alexis if she weren't here. A core piece of my support system is missing right now and while I know it's nobody's fault, I still don't like it. I only want to talk, tell him what's happening, hear him tell me God won't let me down.
I can still feel my legs guiding me without the permission of my mind as I am dragged out of the room and to the hallway on a path to finding a payphone. A single phone resides at the end of a long, long deserted hallway. I insert my dime and dial up Prince's hotel's phone, recalling the message he left on my phone this early morning as he stated he was in Dortmund and wanted me to call him when I got the chance. I thought it was ironic that he left that message on my Chicago phone when I was supposed to be in LA. Now I only see it was a fate.
All I can think while standing here is, 'Please pick up. Please pick up!' I don't know the time difference between us but I do know my 3:17 PM has to be nightly hours for him.
"Hello," The familiar voice of a woman I know answers the phone once I am transferred to Prince's room through the front desk.
Oh, hell no.
"Hey," I greet Sheila, trying to force a smile. I know he isn't okay with her answering his phone. He's running too much of a sex circus for that to be a privilege but if she wants to risk it all, that is her business. "It's Lyric. Is Prince around right now?"
Sheila hums as she thinks, uncertainty present in her tune. I can sense what she's fixing to do in advance. "I don't see him. I can tell him you called." Bullshit. She's lying her ass off.
"Can you find him? I really need his help," I tell her.
Again, humming delays her response on the other end. When I hear the phone shift and Prince voice speaking in the distance, I can't begin to imagine what is happening on that side of the world. "Uhm... I'll try because—" My patience is running thin with her. I flat out cut her off.
"Sheila, please put P on the phone."
Holding up her vocal delivery of artificial innocence, Sheila tries her best to keep up her act. "He's busy right now. Do you think you can call back or like ask someone else?"
Groaning, I spit venom directly into the phone. "I don't have time for your juvenile, high school ass games. Put him on the damn phone!"
Sheila's one-sided competition with my existence in Prince's world has been draining me since I met her. I don't want to fight with her. I don't want to compete with her. I don't want the man who I've seen spend the night with another woman while his fiancée slept at home. I want to be freed from her incorrect assumptions. She played the role of the friend he only pretended to fuck on stage for so long that she can't realize such a concept is my reality. There is no romantic version of Prince and I. All I want is to talk to my friend and if his blow-doll of a drummer could get that through her head, I'd be able to get what I want.
Mike and Ike close in on me to block anyone at the other end of the hallway from taking note of who is having this conversation.
"I'll ask him..." The line falls silent. I can hear the shuffling of her moving around. His voice remains in the distance though I cannot make out what either of them are saying. She comes back to the phone. "He says, 'What's wrong?'"
"Sheila, I'm not playing your fucking games right now! Give him the damn phone—" I attempt to collect myself as I recognize my aggression is getting me nowhere, "Sheila, I'm sorry for cursing at you." I take a deep shaky breath as my crocodile tears rain down my cheeks. I'm too frustrated not to cry. I can see her dangling the key in my face as I fight for my chance to get him on the phone. "It's important."
"Sorry, Lyric, we're in the middle of something. If it's that urgent can I take a message?"
I slam the phone against the wall. It's a force of habit by now. Both of my hands latch onto my face as I slide down the wall. Sitting there for a second, I take in a big breath of fresh air before my lungs explode out of my chest. What do you do when life is crumbling in front your very eyes? It's gotten to the point that I can't even cry anymore. I don't know what I want to do. Sometimes I don't even know if I want to live anymore. I am worn out.
Rising back into my feet, I wipe my face clean. I have had my moment and, now, I can head back to the room. I guess the latest update on my father is flowing because all I am hearing is his name. As I walk, in my sister faces me from the center of the chairs closest to the window. "We're going to see Daddy. You want to go?"
My head does the talking for me as it nods in response. I follow my sister to the floor below us. He is confined to his bed in room 132. Half sleep, my father watches television. Quietly, Aaliyah and I walk in. The brightly lit room makes everything within the four walls crystal clear. He had an IV in his left forearm and a ridiculous amount of other kinds of needles sticking out of his arms. A patch covers his left eyebrow as well, indicating to me that he's been stitched up to some extent.
"How you feeling, Dad?" I allow my inquire to exit my mind as quietly as I can, carefully sit at the end of the bed he lies in. Aaliyah, sitting next to me, watches with a worried folding of her lips.
My father clears his dry throat, probably preparing to speak for the first time in about an hour or two. "I'm doing alright. Thank God that I've only got a couple of broken ribs and that's all. Doctors will let me out tomorrow morning when all the tests are done. I feel like I've bit hit by a ton of bricks."
"I know something close to the feeling." I painfully joke, tapping his leg with a chuckle. His face stays rock solid. I can tell he doesn't like that joke. I can tell by the sincerity he exhibits that an assuming my mother has spoken to him about my Minnesotan misfortunes wouldn't be a far fetched act on my behalf.
My father takes my poorly tasting joke and stabs our tension in the heart. "How dare you not tell me that punk put his hands on you?" Disgust in my actions makes itself known on his face. My father's eyes are glued to me as I revert to a timid teen being scolded, nervously looking to my sister for some kind of answer.
She rises, discomfort taking over her actions as she seeks a way out of the tense room. "I'll just come back in a few..." The door is shut behind her and I am left trapped with my past catching up to me.
Aaliyah leaving my father and I alone is the last thing I wanted to deal with today. Today has been filled with nothing except horrific timing, along with everything else in my currently taking place in my personal life. I can't bare another disappointment. I don't want to be here with my father, as he sits in a hospital bed after being hit by a car, and have to tell him a man tried to put his hands on me. It's embarrassing.
"Chanel, if a motherfucker puts his hands on you then you say something, dammit!" His mahogany face steams with anger, anger just as raw as his other untouched issues. The last time my father yelled at me was when I ran away at sixteen. I can't believe we've gotten here.
No energy to yell over the shame I drown in, I lift myself from the bed and stand at the end of if. "Daddy, it was all about timing."
His face twists until becoming distorted, disgust and disbelief injecting frustration into his every flexed muscle. "Timing? You mean to tell me you had to wait to tell me that you were going to have a child?"
"Did you think to tell me?" I shout back off instinct though I immediately regret the words that left my mouth. Another overlooked subject I hadn't discussed with my father raises to the surfaces. Baby Johnny is one of many elephants in the room. I get all of my information from Aaliyah, Eddie, and Uncle Dorian since I can't bring myself to accept the facts of the matter. The fact that my dear old innocent father, my king, has fathered a child that did not maternally belong to my mother. "Dad, I didn't even know. You did!"
"I did what I had to as a man!"
"Sleep with someone to make sure I got a record deal? Daddy, that's prostitution."
His voice raises at me, "I took responsibility for my mistake! If I almost ruined your life and then I have to save it. I had to pay double the price! I did what I needed to as a man and a parent. I sacrificed!"
"There was nothing to sacrifice! Me and Liyah's life was practically perfect, especially once we moved up North. There was no reason to sacrifice anything." My hands grip the edge of the hospital bed's railing. "If there was anything you needed to sacrifice, it was your job so you could've spend time with your kids instead of pushing them off on your little brother and wife— But I never complained because I knew you guys tried."
"Chanel, you could've been a star at seventeen but I said no! I took that chance from you and it ate me alive every day I woke up. Sleeping with Tina was my way of fixing my mistake."
A perplexed stare in my eyes, I hide my confusion as I refuse it entry to the external world as it seeks a position on my face. I hold on to my thoughts for as long as I can, failing not too long after he drops his first bomb. With my eyebrows tangled and my lips hidden underneath my teeth, my head tilts. "What mistake?" I don't know what he is referring to and, frankly, he is making me nervous.
He takes a deep breath, wincing at the movement of his lung expansion beneath his injured ribs, as he gives me direct eye contact. I cannot help but to wonder what the horrible thing he'd done is. "When you were sixteen, a couple of weeks before your seventeenth birthday, there was a letter in the mail... There were two letters in the mail." My world turns slower with his every words. Blinking away stars, I can see where his words are going. "One was Spelman notifying you that they were keeping their eye on you. The other was Sony records. They'd seen what you at that Downtown talent show and were impressed."
I can't believe it.
"Oh my God..."
"I wanted you to make it in life. Nothing is guaranteed in this business, Chanel—"
I fall into denial as I try to best to refute the claims of my brain's calculated inferences. "You didn't... No, way you didn't. Dad, what did you?"
"Just listen!" He rubs his face and continues with his tale. "I wanted the best for you and I knew that was college. So I burned the letter." I can feel my mouth drop in complete shock as my throat begins to close up. It is hard to take in what he is telling me. "They wouldn't stop calling until I said I didn't know who you were and they had the wrong residence."
I want to cry. I want to cry again.
"So..." I have to stop in order to truly digest what I'm being told. "To fix the fact that you ruined my first chance to have a career, you go and cheat on mom and plant your seed in another woman so I can catch a deal? You don't see that as a foul play?" He sits in his bed with nothing else to say. I feel the same. It is nice to finally know the truth behind it all. It is just as nice to have a conversation I'd been ignoring for a year. Finally, I know why I got treated so shitty at Atlantic. "I need space. I'm going to check if Eddie's out of surgery."
These days. all life had to offer me is disenchantment. Growing up, I couldn't wait to see my name in lights and I was dying to be the hottest thing on the block. I knew it'd come with its prices but I didn't expect my happiness to be one. There once was a time where my birthday wish was that this feeling would last forever. Now, I realize it is all a mirage. Omar ended up being a total moron, Prince runs off to be with some jealous dim-wit, I lose my baby, my brother gets shot and my dad is hit by car. To make matters worse, I know when I wake up in the morning, I'll have to read and watch people comment and speculate on every detail of my personal business. I have to witness my dirty laundry be hung out in Time Square as if it is a television show.
Life can be so very nice.
Walking into Eddie's room, I see he is still in surgery as the silence of the room greets me. I sit down in a chair connected to Alexis'. Leaning forward, my elbows placed firmly on my knees, I bury my face within my hands. No tears leave my eyes but, on the inside, I am balling. My demented mental labyrinth is winning the game. Behind every door I think is the exit is just another thunderstorm and it doesn't help that Misery is chasing behind me the whole way.
"You got it." Alexis gifts me her words of encouragement as she rubs soothing circles in my back.
I sit back up, noticing everybody has left except for the two of us. Lexi is providing me with her full attention. "I'm losing my mind," I tell her. "Why is this happening to me?"
"I wish I had an answer to give you, girl."
With no words left to be shared, we sit in the room as the only sound heard is the humming of the air conditioner.
For the next hour and a half, I sit in the chair as I am waiting for Eddie. I witness my family switch in and out as they are taking turns in waiting too. One group waits on Eddie, the other waits on Dominic. The rotation continues on as every shift lasts one hour. I eventually grow immune to it and find myself writing out what I consider to be possible lyrics in my songbook. It stays in my favorite bag for cloudy moments like this one. 'Ouch, I have lost myself again. Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found. Yeah, I think that I might break. Lost myself again and I feel unsafe...' The scribbles trail off as I am forced to rethink my next line.
Humming and tapping my pencil, I sit in my own world until I hear professional voices getting louder by the door. I close my book with the pencil inside and place it in the empty seat beside me. It must be an in-between transition amongst doctors because my family isn't in here yet. The voices grow closer and, before I know it, in comes Eddie. I hop to my feet with an uneasy feeling swimming around in my stomach.
"Are you his mother?"
I shake my head, eager for some kind of information to be given to me. "No, I'm his sister. Our mother should be back in here at any moment. She's visiting my dad on another floor."
"Alright, I'll be back in about ten to fifteen minutes. Hopefully, she'll be here so I can discuss Edward's charts. The surgery went well. For now, please let him get his rest."
I give a concerned nod and follow the doctor's directions. Sitting back down, I pick back up my book as I wait for my family to come back.
"He's here—" I cut my mother off with a loud hushing, my finger lifting to my pursed lips. She is louder than a Black church's choir and I don't want her to wake him.
"They said to let him sleep. The doctor will be back in fifteen minutes." I close up my book and put my items inside of my bag. It's amazing how after all of these years it's still in prime condition. Lord knows I love this bag with all of my heart. Eddie says I need to get some custom made matching boots to go with them. Then I'd be really fly! "The surgery went well," I inform, relaying the given messages.
Eddie starts shifting in his bed. The room freezes as the eyes of everybody studies his movements. We stare him down, all breath being held until we're sure he is okay. I hope he isn't in too much pain. I'd hate to watch him have to sit in a hospital bed in pain all day. I rush over to the bed. His eyes land on me and he groggily says, "I got shot... Now I can have street credit."
Laughter of relief is enough to ease our tensions. It is beautiful to watch him be so humorously optimistic in such a stressful and agonizing situation.
"You're alive. That's all that matters." I say, placing my hand on his bed's cold frame. I'd die if he were hurt any further. Aaliyah, Uncle Dorian and I have practically raised him for the last six months, all the way up until now that I have to go to Los Angeles.
My mother, blatantly on edge, taps the wall. "I should go get him some chocolate pudding..."
"He only likes vanilla,. Aaliyah says from the seat I was once sitting.
Alexis resides next to her her, my bag resting in her lap, adding, "With animal crackers." She knows. Eddie has eaten her out of a kitchen before. Trust me when I say she knows. It takes a village.
"Got it." My mothers says as she heads out to find the cafeteria.
Eddie is careful not to move much in the bed. Most of his actions are taking place in his face. "Where's Dad and Uncle Dorian?"
"Daddy got hit by a car coming to rescue you..." I sigh at how early I have to tell him the news. If I don't, I know my mother would lie to him. He deserves the truth. "Uncle Dorian's downstairs with him. He'll be up soon."
Eddie's low, drugged eyes attempt to widen but fail miserably. I can tell he is bothered by the disheartening news. "Is he okay?"
"He's perfectly fine."
"Good, he never gave me my allowance from last week so I could go to the arcade."
The girls and I laugh once again."Your little ass isn't moving any time soon, buddy," jokes Alexis. I point in her direction. I wholeheartedly agree.
"Where'd you get hit, Eddie?" Aaliyah asks, sitting up in the chair as her angst lingers. After hearing her question, I have to examine his body myself. I, too, am curious of the answer as well.
"Right here..." Eddie weakly pulls the shoulder of his hospital gown down just enough for us to see his proof. There sits a large, fluffy patch of gauze to soak up all of his blood. It looks like something you'd see on a movie. "It's kind of like that Prince song. That guy was high off crack, man!" Eddie's slightly sadistic humor is practical for a boy his age but it still turned heads from the outsiders walking past.
Sign O' The Times. Prince's music is prophetic yet again.
"Yeah, how about we don't go there." I laugh fixing his clothes. I am beyond ecstatic that he is okay. If I lost Eddie... Honestly, I don't even want to think about it. All I can do is bask in the peace of him being in a good condition and high spirits.
The phone on the room's wall rings. I ignore it as Alexis picks it up. I'm more tuned into Aaliyah's conversation with Eddie and Ike until phrases spoken by Alexis catch my attention. "I thought you talked to her.... Oh, congrats! No... I'm not sure. No shit! That's your fucking fault dumbass!" My head whips around the Alexis. I wonder who her harsh words are aimed at.
Aaliyah wonders the same. We exchange a puzzled eye lock when she decides to call Alexis out on her profanity. "Hellooooo, two children in the room!" Aaliyah's yelling at Alexis is decorated with drama, her sprawled palm rubbing her barely noticeable baby bump.
Alexis waves her off. "I guess you owe somebody a damn apology.... Punk... Yeah, whatever. Hold on." I watch her as she holds the phone up in my direction. "It's Prince."