Jail's Bait: Parole's Victim (Book 4)

Finally reaching Rah-Rah’s room, Rena took a second to smooth herself out. She knew she looked a fright, coming straight from work and all, but there was no way she could let this day go by without spending SOME time with her son, him being in this awful place for ten years, after all...! And that manager of hers, not letting her go early or taking a half-day, threatening to fire her if she tried to. She could just kill him..!

She stopped then in mid-tirade. She really wouldn’t go through with killing her manager; she couldn’t believe she would even joke like that to herself. Her son was a convicted murderer…

…and she wasn’t innocent of the crime, either…

How could she ever lay blame on her own son for doing something she herself was guilty of..? Rena almost believed that Robert probably inherited that bloodlust from her, which was why she couldn’t allow herself to ever forget to visit him every week these past ten years. She was, in a way, atoning for the damage she’d done by passing on that horror to her son- and also atoning for the damage she’d done to-

-after all these years, she still couldn’t allow herself to face how far she went to try to get her gang colors when she was a teenager. She could still see his face, that homeless kid, Telly was his name, who wasn’t that much older than she was- he begged hard for her to spare him, and she still pulled the tri-

Rena pulled herself back from those thoughts- that way lay madness. And that wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to confront in a place like this, she reminded herself with a shudder. Pushing those memories back down in the darkness they festered in, Rena summoned a smile and opened the door to her son’s room.

Inside, Rah-Rah was laying back in the reclining chair the doctors provided for him; once they saw that he wouldn’t even get up out of the chair to get into bed, they got the recliner, so that the nurses would push a button and voila! instant futon for her son. He was, in truth, a somewhat plain person, not really the stand-out-from-the-crowd type, yet to his mother, Rah-Rah was the most handsome fellow in the world… yet tonight his ‘handsome’ face was stubbled and his hair was longer than she knew he would have liked. He was dressed in the same standard issue pajamas he always wore and his brown eyes were staring sightlessly out of the window, probably never to focus on anything ever again. It broke Rena’s heart all over again every visit to see him this way; tonight was no different.

“Hello, sweetheart, it’s Mama,” she said softly, coming towards he son and leaning over to kiss his stubbled cheek. “I know it’s earlier than usual, my visit this week, but I didn’t forget what tonight is,” she said softly, getting a coverlet from the bed and laying it across Rah-Rah, tucking him in. “It was ten years ago today that you were… brought here.”

 “I remember,” Rah-Rah said in a raspy voice, focusing his dark eyes on her.

 Rena yelped, almost jumping out of her shoes with fright. “Robbie..? SON..??? OH, MY GOD-”

 “SHHHHHHH,” Rah-Rah said harshly, grabbing Rena’s wrist tightly.

 She quieted down, but her eyes danced. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re awake, you’re finally awake,” she whispered, falling to her knees and throwing herself against her son’s chest, sobbing with joy and relief. Rah-Rah lifted his arm and hugged her, stroking her head as she sobbed on.

After Rena could gather some composure, she lifted her head and smiled through her tears. “I missed you so much, baby,” she said, cupping his face in her hands. “I never stopped coming to visit you, not a week went by..! When did you wake up..? HOW did you wake up- the doctors never told me- did it just happen?”

 “Whoa,” Rah-Rah said, shushing his mother again, “slow down. First things first- how’s Marquis? Does Marquette let you see him?”

 Rena’s face grew cold and stern, making Rah-Rah frown. “What is it, Ma..? Is my son okay?”

 “His graduation from high school was actually earlier on today, and there’s a graduation party about to start in a little while, I guess. He has been accepted to Berkeley in the fall. Your son’s tall and strong, almost a man- well, that’s what I know from what I read in the papers,” Rena said stiffly.

 “The pap- why would you only know about Marquis from the papers..? What aren’t you telling me, Ma,” Rah-Rah asked quietly, his eyes growing dark. “Out with it!!”

 “Okay, but you’re not going to like it,” she said finally, avoiding his stare. “I cut off all ties to him once he decided to go live with Joop and Lamar.”

 “WHAT..?” Rah-Rah yelled- then shushed himself. “Marquette let my son go be raised by Joop and Lamar..?” he whispered.

 “Well, I tried to argue that I should be the one to raise him, since you were my son and he lived with me at any rate,” Rena said, tears welling up in her eyes. “Marquette told me that since you were part of the Hill family, so was your son- and he needed to know them as well, with Joop being your 1st cousin and his father your uncle.”

 “I never thought about that,” Rah-Rah grumbled to himself. “Dat punk ass nigga Joop is MY FIRST cousin..! And da warden of the local prison is my got-damn uncle…”

 “Joe is actually running for governor of the state, he’s no longer the Warden up at WA State,” Rena told Rah-Rah. “I knew that letting Marquis get to ‘know-his-family’ was a bunch of bullshit… Marquette only wanted in good with the Hill family so that she could get access to your inheritance-”

 “Wait a minute,” Rah-Rah said, “MY inheritance..?”

 “Well, technically it’s not yours anymore, but yes,” Rena said. “Your biological grandfather, J. Mayson Hill, didn’t want anyone to get the lion’s share of his fortune, so his will states that all his offspring get an equal share, and their children have to equally split their inheritance between them as well.”

 “Well, where’s my share then,” Rah-Rah asked, frowning.

 “It’s all about some legal mumbo-jumbo Dan set up,” Rena explained. “He got you declared mentally incompetent and so your share of the Hill fortune got put into a trust for Marquis, that he get when he turns 19. His mother got to use some of it for education and to give him a comfortable life.”

 “He’ll be 19 in a couple of months,” Rah-Rah speculated. “Well, I can’t really be mad at Mr. Clark for that, he made sure my boy would get his teeth into a fortune, so he’ll be well off for the rest of his life… did you ever find out how much that inheritance was..?”

 She told him.

 Rah-Rah let out a low whistle. “Marquis could buy outright the franchises to half the teams in the NBA- the GOOD teams. And still never have to work at all after the fact. That’s good.”

 “I know,” Rena said; “that’s why your father-”

 “My... father,” Rah-Rah interrupted, saying it for the first time- looking directly at his mother. “Aww, Ma, why didn’t you tell me about him..?” he sighed.

 Rena stared at her son for a long moment. “Baby, I didn’t know what to tell you,” she finally said. “We met at a bar one night, tried to date a little… it just didn’t work out; Trey never seemed to be that into me. We s-slept together, but we lost touch after that. I never even tried to find him to tell him I was pregnant- it just seemed like throwing out the baby with the bathwater; I didn’t want him to think I was trying to trap him. I tried to rationalize it all by convincing myself that Trey only came into my life to give me you, and then move on. I honestly almost didn’t recognize him when he showed up at the house with Dan, I don’t know how he even knew you existed…” and she faltered under her son’s gaze, unable to go further.

 “Nice story. Stop lying to me,” Ma, Rah-Rah threatened; “I always knew when you did. I would never believe you would hoe yourself out like that. I aint da product of no one-night stand, don’t make me think that that’s true either.”

 Rena stared at Rah-Rah in shock- then she slumped, defeated. “Okay, fine,” she admitted. “The truth is, he knew you existed. He named you, actually- Robert Atreyu Howard- Rah-Rah, get it..? Your father’s the first one who called you that, and it just stuck. We thought we were in love; after I got pregnant with you we got engaged, but since we weren’t married yet I didn’t think you taking his last name was appropriate.

 “Trey left us just after you were born, because I gave him an ultimatum- the Police Academy or me. The only thing he’d ever really wanted was to become a cop, ever since he was a little boy growing up in foster care. He thought it would help him to find his birth family if he was on the Force, it was his obsession. I was jealous of his devotion to it. I wanted a husband- one who wouldn’t put himself on the line every day for his job- I couldn’t se myself watching him go to work day after day, not knowing if he’d make it home that night because he got killed in the line of duty. It was too dangerous a job, and I told him that if he chose the badge over his son I would take out a restraining order against him and make him sign away any parental rights- so he signed the papers, left us and never looked back.”

 Rah-Rah looked at his mother for a long minute, than he drew a deep breath. “So… let me get this straight. The only stable thing in his life since he was in foster care was his desire to be a cop so he could find his birth family, and because he couldn’t let that go, you cut him out of my life,” Rah-Rah said with a dark look. “Don’t you remember the ghetto, Ma..? Do you know how many niggas have to grow up knowing their father didn’t want to be around- and here mine does, and you push him away..?”

 “Look, I didn’t say it was the right thing to do,” Rena defended herself; “it was my gut reaction from being angry and afraid for Trey, afraid for you and me. I admit I should’ve thought it through before I ran Trey out of the picture.”

 “We would have been rich, Ma,” Rah-Rah said. “He would’ve found out who he was and I would have grown up rich, been able to take better care of my son. I WOULDN’T HAVE SHOT HIM, Ma,” Rah-Rah said then, his eyes filling with tears.

 “It’s all my fault,” Rena said, turning her face away from his accusing glare. “I know this. Had I allowed your father to know you then things would be much, much different- for all of us.” And she bowed her head in shame and guilt.

 Rah-Rah sat still for a time, shaking his head silently. “Well, I sat here for ten years, alone with my regrets about my father- and my son,” Rah-Rah said then, wiping his tears away, “so now its time to set things right. I’ve been awake for a couple days now, and no, the doctors don’t know about it. I needed to figure things out first, so I just sat still whenever anyone came in here, and I listened to what they were saying. I’ve heard a lot of things that may be useful; as long as they don’t catch on that I’m not catatonic anymore.”

 Rena looked up, frowning. “I don’t understand; don’t you want the doctors to know you’re getting better..? That way you can get out of here-”

 “And straight into prison, Ma,” Rah-Rah reminded her. “If they find out I’m out of the catatonia and able to stand trial, I’ll finally be convicted of not only the murder of a cop, but also of... patricide, now that everyone knows who… Officer Trey was to me. They might even try to charge me with… sexual assault. I think that laying low is the best move right now- well, it was the best plan. Now that you’re here, you can help- I’ve come up with a new plan,” he smiled.

 “What plan..?”

 “Well, you’re gonna help bust me out of here, first of all,” Rah-Rah said.

 Before Rena could react to what he said, just then the lights in the corridor outside the room window went out, a loud click! was heard by the door, then a red light began to glow on the strip just above the doorknob.

“Oh, whoa,” Rah-Rah said then, eyebrows raised, “it looks like they forgot about you. They’ve locked up for the night.”

 Rena jumped up and ran over to the door, trying to turn the knob. True enough, what was easy to turn when Rena came into the room was now felt like a padlock. “What the- that day nurse never told the night nurse I was still back here; now I’m stuck in here until morning..!” she fumed, jiggling the doorknob that wouldn’t budge.

 “Not necessarily,” Rah-Rah said, calmly smiling once more at his mother.

 “What are you so happy about..?” Rena said, “I’m trapped in here with you- unless you don’t mind the company, that is…”

 Rah-Rah laughed. “I wouldn’t mind- we could talk all night long, help me to catch up to current events. But no, Ma, I’m smiling because you really did come just in time to help,” he said, reaching underneath him and holding up what looked like a ring of security passkeys. “Like I told you, I’ve got a plan.”