CHAPTER XXXVII
13:35
Naomi parked on 134th Street and Lenox Avenue, one block down from Harlem Hospital. As soon as she got out of the car and started walking towards the hospital, she subconsciously braced for the normalcy of life for a female in the City.
"Mami, I'll change your whole life if you let me, baby."
"Shorty, ayo shorty, ayo let me holla at you... Fuck you too then, you stupid bitch." She looked at this particularly disrespectful ass nigga and nodded, bowing her head and keeping it moving.
"Babygirl, babygirl. Why you gotta be like that, a nigga just tryna holla."
"Baby, baby, baby! I ain't never seen white bread thick n a mufucka befo - I seen it all now." She smiled inwardly at that one, it was original.
"Did you fall from the sky, baby? Cuz I swear heaven missing an angel."
If men only knew how aggravating their advances could be, especially when it came in such large numbers diurnally. On the other hand, a woman living in the City subconsciously placed some measure of self-worth on the amount of catcalls and compliments she received. The catcalls and even the compliments could be overwhelming but a woman knew she still had "it" if they kept coming. As for men, they were thirst traps, the easiest prey to catch, in her opinion. But some, like Branson, were predators. Not in the sense of attacking a woman but in the sense of his aggressive and silently leonine aura. He chose whom he wanted to be with and whom he wanted around him. He wasnt thirsty in the slightest. She knew women likely threw themselves at him... She found herself getting angry so she put her thoughts on something else.
She had bought some chocolate chip cookie dough (the frozen kind you had to wait a bit before baking but which many people ate raw, just like that, bit by bit) - Katrina loved it. For Get Right she bought the small bottle of Hennessy. For Imani, she had bought a fifty sack of that loud, a pack of Avocado Cigarillos and a pack of Black and Mild Cigarillos. When she got to the hospital and presented herself at the main desk in the Emergency Room, she was told that Imani was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) after a difficult, but successful, bullet removal surgery. She was still in critical condition, having lost a lot of blood and gone into shock before she even got to the hospital. The doctors were now waiting to see if her body would heal itself after some help from medical science.
Katrina was in Observation, with Get Right sitting on a chair near her and a bunch of papers on a nearby table. He was holding her hand while she slept. Get Right stood up and hugged Naomi when she silently appeared in the room; Naomi noticed that he still held onto Katrina's hand. They stepped out of Observation so as to not disturb Katrina.
"How:s she doing?" Naomi asked, looking through the glass at Katrina.
"She's strong, Nay. Look at that beautiful body. It's gon' take more than a bullet to stop her." Get Right said this pridefully and looked at Katrina with admiration for how strong Katrina was. Naomi smiled inwardly; he did love Katrina... and Imani... It was just so strange, to see a man with two women. Then it hit her: what was strange was not seeing a man with two women but to see a man with two women in public. Because men had multiple women, no doubt, but everything was in secret, although everyone knew about it. But to see such a union in public, at least in the 'hood, was weird as fuck.
"And Imani?" Get Right looked off into the distance.
"They did everything they could and the operation was successful, but it's like her body's not responding well to the operation... Some shit like that!" Get Right said, waving his hand in the air aimlessly in frustration. He wiped his face and yawned, also stretching after having sat for so long. He noticed the bag she was carrying. "What's that?" She handed him the bag and of course he took out the Hennessey first and chugged a good bit of it before putting it back in the bag and looking around to see if anyone had seen him. The effects of the Hennessey hit him and he trembled. He also grimaced. "Ooowee! Now thats that yac!" Naomi smiled. He then began relating what happened earlier, corroborating everything Branson told her. Kat stirred in Observation. Get Right and Naomi went back in the room.
Kat was laying on her right side because it was through the left thigh that the bullet had entered and exited. She had on a hospital gown, under which the bullet had been bandaged after the wound had been inspected and cleaned and the bullet determined to have passed through her thigh. She licked her lips and tried to wipe her eyes. Get Right did it for her. Naomi was taken aback.
"Wow!" Naomi exclaimed. "He be wiping the cold out your eyes?" Katrina looked at Naomi and smiled drunkenly, obviously still under the effects of the anesthetics.
"To see who's this paging me, and why?..." Katrina asked bizarrely. When Get Right snorted in subdued laughter a second before Katrina, Naomi quicklycaught the musical reference. "I need some water, babe." Get Right looked around, surprised that there was no bottled water on hand.
"I-ight, lemme run and go get some," said Get Right. He got up and quickly left the room. Naomi simply sat by Katrina for a few minutes, not saying anything. She then remembered the roll of cookie dough and took it out of the bag. Kat smiled lazily and tried groping for it clumsily. Naomi held her hand.
"It's okay, Kat. Don't waste any unnecessary energy. You want me to open it on one end, right?"
"I'll do it, I got it," Get Right said, coming back from his successful foray for bottled water. He put several varieties of bottled water on Katrina's bed's small side tray and moved it inward a tad, also placing the cookie dough on the tray. Then he opened a bottle of water and slowly gave her some, making sure she drank a little at a time. Rinsing his hand with a bit of water in a trashbin, he proceeded to feed her tiny pieces of the frozen raw dessert. After some time she held up her hand, indicating that she was full. He offered her a bit more water, which she accepted, fell back and fell asleep.
And so it went the next few hours, with Naomi or Get Right occasionally stepping out for some cigarillos or, in Naomi's case, just some Hennessey, since she didn't want to smoke the loud by herself nor with Get Right nor with anyone else but Imani. It was about four thirty when Branson called her.
"What up, ma?"
"'Sup, Bran?"
"Look at you, all familiar n shit!"
"Familiar? Weren't you the one all in my guts last night?"
"Well, gadam! Touché, li'l bit."
"Where you at?"
"We on our w to see the other big homie and to see about the progress over there. How's the peeps?"
"Kat's fine. Get Right's good..."
"...And Imani?"
"Apparently, she still not out of the woods yet."
"That's not a good sign."
"Trust me, I know." They were both silent, thinking about everybody's long kiss goodnight. Would it hurt to pierce the veil? Would it be sudden? Would it feel like drowning where, in order to get to the other side, one would have to break through a new type of amniotic sac-like substance?
Then Naomi's mind veered off into the bizarre: could her ancestors see her masturbating? Would they be angry with her when she joined them? Could ghosts see you masturbating? Did her great grandmother watch her gobbling Branson's balls and just shake her ephemeral head? Or would her great grandfather elbow his wife and cackle in amusement as his granddaughter did the same shit women had been doing for years untold?
"I-ight then. I'll catch you later."
"How much later?"
"No lie, we going to see family after we leave here."
"Hmm. Well, no matter how late, you call me or you come through."
"That's the plan. But don't be mad if the plan changes."
"I said no matter how late."
"And I said don't be mad if the plan changes," Branson said, getting upset. Naomi heard the annoyance in his voice and checked herself.
"That's fine, baby. Anytime you can get back to me is fine, just to let me know you're all right." Branson calmed down immediately with the apology.
She don't wanna fight you, nigga, relax. That's my job, said The Voice.
"Sounds good to me. I can do that. I heard you and I appreciate the concern, ma. No diggity."
"Huh? No what?"
"I said no diggity. That's a line from these rappers th- you wouldn't understand. You a real youngster."
"You not that much older, homie."
"Riiiiight. Keep telling yourself that. Alright, ma. I'ma hit you up later. Let Get Right know I'ma hit him up later."
"Okay, baby. Smooches."
"Boomerang." They both smiled as they dropped the call.
