DARIUS JONES BY MARY B. MORRISON
Prologue
Darius
“Aw, shit! Baby! Watch out!” I stared in my side-view mirror. A white pickup truck rammed the back of our SUV, forcing us into the crosswalk on Sunset Boulevard. My wife slammed on the brakes. The pregnant woman in front of our SUV snatched her toddler into her arms, then jumped onto the sidewalk.
My four-year-old son screamed, “Daddy!”
Before I could look over my shoulder to check on him, the truck rammed us a second time, forcing us into the intersection beyond the red light. I stretched my arm across my wife’s breasts, pushed her backward. Her forehead came one inch from hitting the steering wheel. If her seat belt hadn’t locked and I hadn’t caught her, my wife might be dead.
My son frantically kicked the back of my seat, yelling, “Daddy!”
“What the hell is going on!” The green light for oncoming traffic vanished. The yellow light beamed. I gasped, held my breath. An SUV sped downhill on Horn Avenue toward my wife’s side of the car. It was coming too fast to stop. I saw the woman in the white truck behind us laughing, her head tilted down. Her truck bumped us again, putting us farther into the intersection.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I jammed my hand against the horn. Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!
Fancy clenched the wheel, braced her back against the seat. I shouted, “Step on the gas!” as I reached for the steering wheel. I needed my wife to speed up. I lifted my leg, tried to place my size sixteen brown gator shoe over the gearshift to plunge the accelerator. My foot kicked our car into neutral. I put my foot on the floor in front of me just before—
Crash! The SUV slammed into the driver’s side door. My wife’s window shattered into tiny pieces. Glass showered her body. My wife’s piercing scream penetrated like a thousand darts stabbing me in my head. Her forehead hit the steering wheel. Blood splattered on the windshield and on me at the same time. My wife’s air bag deployed, flattening her body against her seat. The force of the last collision spun our SUV onto Holloway Drive. “Jesus Christ!” I yelled.
I swore everything happened in less than sixty seconds. I wiped my face, praying the blood in my eyes and the nightmare I’d just witnessed was a bad dream. Reality told me this was no fucking accident.
The white pickup zoomed by us. The Arizona license plate was a blur. All I saw was . . . 777. Just as I extended my arms toward my wife, my air bag inflated like a parachute, jamming my body against my seat. “Ain’t that a bitch?” My face was sandwiched sideways on the headrest. Blood oozed down my wife’s hair, down her face, and onto her blue halter dress. I whispered, “God, help us.”
“Daddy!” My son’s screeching repeatedly pierced my ears.
Daggers replaced the feeling of darts. I couldn’t help my wife or my son. My body felt numb from the waist down. A man was supposed to protect his family. I couldn’t move. I closed my eyes. “God, give me strength.”
I had to find the superhuman power I had when I was on the basketball court battling my opponents. That strength that exploded unexpectedly was still inside me. I knew it. Punching my way from underneath the air bag, I reached into the backseat and unbuckled my son. My legs were still numb. I pulled him into the front, stood him on my seat. I held him close trying to shield his face from Fancy.
He screamed. “Fancy’s bleeding, Daddy,” he cried, burying his face into my shoulder. “I’m scared, Daddy.” His arms clamped around my neck.
Fuck! I didn’t turn his face fast enough.
I wondered if his mother, Ashlee, was to blame for this accident. I had no enemies. Who else would do such an evil thing? At one time, I was almost in love with Ashlee for real, until she fucked my brother. I would’ve gotten rid of her pronto if she’d fucked any other man but I couldn’t let my brother steal my money and my girl. So I’d kept fucking Ashlee until she helped me set him up. After I got revenge on my brother, I axed Ashlee. Maybe this was her idea of payback.
My thoughts raced but my wife wasn’t moving. My son’s hug strangled me. I could hardly breathe. All I saw was blood on her beautiful face. Her blue dress was now red. My limbs trembled uncontrollably.
Dragging my son’s feet across my lap, I sat him on top of me. I yelled, “Somebody call nine-one-one!”
DJ screamed, “Ahhhh, Daddy! My legs!”
“Oh, Jesus!” I lifted my son. His blood stained my tan slacks. What the fuck was I thinking? I didn’t know my lap was covered with glass. I’d accidentally cut my son’s legs. I stood him in front me, tried but couldn’t open my door. I reached to the floor. Searching my side of the car, I found my phone, dialed 9-1-1.
I held the back of DJ’s head. Careful not to let him touch my shirt, I faced him toward my shoulder. “Oh, God.” My stomach tightened. I heaved. Felt like I was about to puke. “Baby, I’ma get you out. Hang in there.” My wife didn’t respond. Her eyes were more closed than open.
I yelled into my phone at the operator, “Help us! She’s not responding!”
A group of men pried open my door. I got out, ripped off my button- up shirt, took off my slacks, shook my shoulder-length locs, then picked up my son. His grip around my neck choked me. I couldn’t breathe. DJ screamed directly in my ear. I tucked my phone into my fitted black boxer briefs.
“I got you, my man. Daddy’s got you.” I could no longer hold back the tears. This shit was fucked up. I’d gone from being the happiest man in the world to the most helpless man alive in a matter of minutes.
DJ cried, “I’m scared, Daddy. My legs hurt.” He screamed again.
“Ease up a little,” I told DJ. I checked his face. I removed his shirt, scanned his body. Slithers of glass were in his calves and the back of his thighs. I threw his shirt on the car seat, braced my arm underneath his butt to keep from touching the back of his legs.
I wasn’t sure how but I made my way to the driver’s side. Glass crunched beneath my hard soles. “That’s my wife!” Pushing the men aside, I placed one hand on the dented handle and my foot on the smashed passenger door, then yanked as hard as I could. The door was stuck.
I snatched a crowbar from the man standing behind me. Son in one arm, iron in my other hand, I tried prying the door. Nothing worked. Spectators gathered. Cameras and cell phones pointed at me, below and above my waist, then at my wife. Fuck those inconsiderate bastards. What could I do except expect the photos to end up on Media TakeOut, TMZ, and everywhere else on television and online?
“Let us do this, Darius,” one of the guys insisted.
Ignoring him, I cried, “I don’t know what I’ll do without my wife. Baby, hold on. I’ma get you out.” I needed both hands. Unwrapping my son’s arms from my neck, I said, “Son, stand right here. Don’t move. Do not move.”
He screamed again, touched the back of his thigh.
“Don’t touch yourself!”
His body stiffened, mouth tightened, his innocent eyes stretched wide with fear. Looking up at me, he cried, “But it hurts, Daddy.”
I didn’t mean to yell at him. “Daddy’s sorry, my man.”
Jesus, they both need me and I need you.
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mary b. morrison
New York Times best-selling author Mary B. Morrison, quit her near six-figure government job with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to become a writer saying, “I’d rather die a failure, than to have lived and never known whether I would become a success.”
Before Mary resigned on June 3, 2000, she laid a four month foundation writing and self-publishing her first novel, Soul Mates Dissipate which quickly became an Essence® national best-seller. Mary has also written, a non-fiction self-help book entitled Who’s Making Love, a poetry book entitled Justice Just Us Just Me, and several fiction novels, Never Again Once More, He’s Just a Friend, Somebody’s Gotta Be on Top, Nothing Has Ever Felt like This, and When Somebody Loves You Back. She’s coauthored a novel with New York Times best-selling author Carl Weber entitled She Ain’t the One.
The SHIFT (Supporting Healthy Inner Freedom for Teens) and The RaW (Readers and Writers) Advantage are Mary’s companies. The SHIFT Program sponsored its first publication of short stories written by the six grade students of Mr. Lou Richie’s class at St. Lawrence O’Toole entitled Diverse Stories: from the Imaginations of Sixth Graders. Through the RaW Advantage, Mary conducts self-publishing workshops sharing detailed information on how to self-publish and promote literature.
Mary recently completed her first screenplay for Soul Mates Dissipate. The movie is scheduled for release late 2008. Mary resides in Oakland, California, and is most proud of her son, Jesse Byrd, Jr. who’s on a full basketball scholarship at the University of San Francisco.
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