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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ZAND

T he next day proved to be a new one. I woke around noon only to notice an excessive amount of missed calls on my cell phone from a number I didn’t recognize. I checked my voicemail, and the message floored me. A nurse from UIC medical was muttering something in broken English.

Chanel.

Chanel.

Chanel.

I remembered her kissing me goodbye as she left my bed early this morning. She was dressed for work. I watched her leave my bedroom, and I turned over and went back to sleep. What could’ve happened in that time?

I didn’t have time to think about it. I only had time to brush my teeth and dress. I’d slept too long. I wasn’t going to waste my time in the shower. I splashed cold water on my face before grabbing my car keys and leather jacket. Sprinting out my front door, I rushed to my car. I was headed to my girl.

I sped through traffic, rushing to the hospital. I tried to control my panic. Something happened to Chanel and the fear of losing her entered my veins like pure heroin. I had little information from the voicemail and I had to fill in the blanks. The blanks were violent. The blanks had my mind thinking of the worse case scenario.

I pulled into the hospital parking lot and started looking for a parking space. I drove around longer than I should have. I made sure to suppress my anger before stepping out of my car.

The emergency room information desk was buzzing with people, sound, and action. It seemed the entire family of a nineteen-year-old Black man was grieving. What my eavesdropping gathered was he’d been shot four times in the Lawndale area. This was, I dare to say, typical for young Black men in Chicago. It was a normal day of death in the inner city.

The chorus of sobs was commendable. This young man was loved. I wondered if I would be missed so profoundly as Donte— I heard someone wail, “Why they have to get Donte?” A good question, but not one for me to answer and one I was sure CPD would be looking into as soon as the storm settled.

There was a huge police presence in the emergency room. I’ve seen death so many times I should be numb to it, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know this young man’s story. I didn’t know if he was a good person or a bad person, a gangbanger or a junior pastor at some Baptist Church. I knew there was a thin line between the two. I would never judge his choices or the path that led him to death. I had been considered a bad man. Now I lived to change my past and leave it behind. But sometimes the past had a way of catching up to you. It even had a way of showing up in an alley at your place of business.

The receptionist that looked up Chanel’s room number was clearly overworked. She needed a vacation to a tropical paradise and a few hits of Botox around her weary eyes. I could read all of this in her face, body language, and demeanor. She was on the precipice of rudeness. I couldn’t fault her. How many dead bodies and bodies on the fringes of death had she seen since working behind this desk.

I learned Chanel was no longer in the emergency wing. She had been moved to a room. I was allowed to go up with a sticker for a visitors’ pass and with leaving my driver’s license at the desk. I took the sticker from the scowling lady.

“You better put that on your clothes.” She barked.

I looked at her, and she glared at me. I slapped the stupid sticker on my leather jacket and scoffed at her. I guess my White privilege meant nothing to her. I noticed early on that I was one of two colorless people in the emergency not counting the Chicago police officers mulling around Donte’s family.

I needed to hear what happened to Chanel. I refused to jump to conclusions.

I had to show my sticker pass to another desk to get into her room. She was in a private part of the hospital and I had little to no information. When I entered her open hospital door, relief hit me. I had the confirmation that she was alive and breathing air. It seemed silly, but I’d seen death. I had been tricked by death and I had a love hate relationship with death.

I sat in the chair by her bed and watched her sleep. I removed my jacket and walked over to the whiteboard across the room. I grabbed the clipboard and read her chart. After putting it back I went back to the chair and leaned back.

Chanel was out. I’d read the meds they administered, hydrocodone and acetaminophen. There was no way I would wake her. She looked like Chanel, but the version of her that was an extra in the Netflix movie Bruised.

It took a few minutes before she opened her eyes. I leapt from the chair and dashed over to her bedside. It was only a few steps, but it seemed like the longest distance.

“Hey, doll.”

“Zand.” I leaned over to Chanel and planted a kiss on her one uninjured cheek.

“Oh, babe. I got here as soon as I heard.”

“I didn’t know who else to call. Well, the nurse called. I, I, had to get X-rays and scans and tests and—.” Chanel cleared her throat. “Oh, the pain was, they had to give me something, and I was out before I could call you myself. I wasn’t trying to worry you. I didn’t have my cell phone or my purse.”

“No, you were supposed to call me. You can always call me.”

I took another look at the plum-colored bruises on her face. The black eye, the swollen lip and the black stitches that lined her forehead.

“Babe, tell me what happened?”

“Someone attacked me while I was emptying the garbage.”

“At the apartment?” I needed details.

“Yeah.”

I was confused. I saw her leave my apartment for work this morning. She was dressed in scrubs. “The garbage?”

“I left you and went upstairs to my place. I forgot my work I.D. I had time to make me a cup of coffee. While it was brewing, I grabbed the garbage. I was going to dump my garbage, come back upstairs and get my bag and my coffee and then get in my car and head to work. I just remember having garbage in my hand and being at the dumpster. Then I got hit from behind. I tried to fight, but they beat me until I was unconscious. I don’t know how long I was out. Miss Hampton from apartment 1B found me when she took her dog out?—”

I was listening to her words and trying to keep my temper at bay. My anger sent my brain to another place. I missed a few of her words as she continued to speak. There were some parts I missed and I only heard the words— “The police.”

“What happened with the police?” I asked, willing myself to calm down and listen intensely. My blood was boiling. I wanted to kill the man that put his hands on her. I was doing a good job of concealing my anger. Chanel hadn’t noticed my rage and continued on.

“The police, they came to the hospital and questioned me about the attack but I didn’t have anything on me, no purse, no cell phone. There wasn’t anything to steal. The police couldn’t classify it as a robbery. I was just emptying the garbage and got jumped. They were just hitting me. There were punches coming from everywhere. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if it was random.”

They, she said they, more than one? The worse thing came to my mind and my hands shuddered. “Did they?—?”

“No, when I came to, I was in the ambulance. My clothes were on. I felt so much pain. My head hurt, my face hurt, and my neck. I didn’t feel like I had been violated. My clothes were dirty, but they weren’t out of place.”

“Okay.” My mind swirled with the possibilities. The first possibility was her ex-boyfriend, Alonzo Lopez. It could be my ex Teresa. Could it really be Teresa?

“They didn’t get anything. Maybe it was just some kids or something. I wish I’d seen my attackers.”

“I have hidden video cameras on the property.”

“You do?” She seemed genuinely surprised by this.

“Yes. There are cameras everywhere.”

“What do you mean, you said, I have cameras everywhere?”

Oh shit. “Yeah, I do. I never mentioned I owned the apartment building.”

“Zand, you own the apartment building?”

“I own the club, the apartment, and a few other properties around the city.”

Something changed in her eyes. I wasn’t sure what, but something. “Are you in pain?”

“No, not now. I was, but they gave me something. I’m highly medicated.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Yeah, but I look like a monster. It looks worse than it is. I promise.”

“Your wounds will heal. Nothing is fractured.”

“How do you know?”

“I read your chart.” I pointed to the whiteboard where a clear pocket held a clipboard.

Her eyes followed. “Oh, what does the chart say?”

“It says you’ll be fine. No broken ribs, just bumps and bruises and a concussion.” I wanted to reassure her she would be safe. “I should’ve been there.”

“I never needed an escort to the garbage can before. It’s so dark in the morning. I should’ve waited until after work.”

“No, it should be safe for you anytime. Did you get any description at all? I’m going to check the cameras, but did you see anything?”

“No, not really. I think there were two people. It felt like I was being hit from different directions.”

“Men, or women?”

“They were small like women but they could’ve been short men. They didn’t speak. I don’t know. I was hit right away. Then I was fighting. Then I was seeing stars. There were more punches and I think my head slammed into the side of the garbage dumpster and I was knocked out.”

“Probably how you got the concussion. Do you know how long you’re going to be in the hospital?”

“If everything looks good, I can go home tomorrow.”

“I will pick you up, take you back to the apartment. Do I need to call someone for you?”

“No, no, no.” She shook her head, but her movements were stiff.

“What about your friend, Morgan?”

“No, no. I don’t want to worry her. With Craig’s funeral, I don’t want to add anything else on her. She has a lot going on. I’m going to tell her, eventually. Later, when I don’t look so hideous.”

“You can never look hideous.”

“I’m sure the mirror says otherwise.”

“Fuck the mirror!”

Chanel tried to giggle, but it came out as a choking cough.

Someone would pay. As much as I wanted to be a changed man, I sort of knew deep down that someone would die.