give me a reason

     It was dark and raining heavily on Detroit’s northwest side. A black pick-up truck sat with the engine off just beyond the golf course at River Rouge Park. The park officially closed thirty minutes earlier, and the grounds were deserted. 

    Looking through night vision goggles, the driver in the pick-up spotted a dark-colored Honda Accord approximately a hundred yards away. The single occupant didn’t seem to notice the truck. 

    The driver in the truck glanced at his watch.

    Just then, a Hyundai SUV slowly passed by the truck, driving toward the Accord, and parked behind it. The driver of the Hyundai glanced over his shoulder to eye his son who was asleep on the backseat, then looked lovingly at his wife who was seated next to him. She gently caressed his right hand.

    “Don’t worry babe. Everything is going to be alright,” he whispered. 

     The sound of the vehicle’s windshield wipers whisking away the downpour of rain silenced his words. She embraced her husband and gently pecked him on the lips. He kissed her hand and grabbed his umbrella and opened the door as the rain continued to rapidly pour. 

    Opening the umbrella, he walked over to the Honda Accord and got in on the passenger side. 

    “Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice was stern.

    The woman leaned in to kiss him. He drew back.

    “It’s like that?” She asked, recoiling like a rattlesnake. “Why are you doing this David? You said, you loved me and we were going to raise Amiri together after you left your wife.”

    “Huh?” He said, shocked. “I don’t remember saying that.”

     “You say it all the time when I’m giving you head,” she responded.

     “You can’t believe anything I say when you’re giving me head. While you’re doing that, I might tell you, I will walk to the moon and bring you back a hundred pounds of cheese. Never, never, never believe what a man says when you’re performing magic so good, that his toes curl up so tight, he needs vise grips to straighten them out. Your head game is magnificent. You make me feel like I am having an out-of-body experience. It seems like my soul left my body and went to Heaven.”

     “If I’m that good, why are you acting this way? You’re leaving me because you now like men?”

     A look of disgust and outrage appeared on his face. 

     “Like men!? There are only twenty men, I know that I respect. I’m a whoremonger. You used to be my ‘Side Chick’, second in command, but you snuck and had Amiri on me. You thought my wife was going to leave me, but she didn’t. All you are to me now is a ‘sidepiece.’ That is lower than a prostitute, lot lizard, plant rat or Instagram Model. At least they get paid. A ‘sidepiece’ is a woman a man calls when he is bored.

    “For real, David?”

     Why does this heffa keep calling me, David? That is her ex-husband’s name. Doesn’t she know he divorced her, when she had my baby? I will play along with her game, the man thought to himself.

    “That is how you feel about me? So, you were never going to leave your wife for me? You were just stringing me along like a fish on a line?” She asked with pain in her voice.

    “I won’t leave my wife for you or any woman. My wife is an excellent woman. I’m the one who isn’t worth a damn. I won’t leave my dog for you.”

    He saw the look on her face. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes drooped. 

    He bit his lip. I must not have used my inside voice, he thought, reaching for her.

    “Where is my damn son?!” She screamed, trying to forget what he said and focus on the reason they were there.

    “Our son,” he corrected her. “He is with my wife.”

    “What the hell is he doing with her?” She asked angrily. “Why is she even here!? This isn’t about her, damn it!”

     “Why is it always drama with you?” David asked, attempting to remain calm. “This meet up is about you granting me full custody of our son, Sabrina.”

     “Bastard! You are not taking my son from me!” She screamed while opening the car door. 

      Despite the torrential rain and violent winds, she ran towards the backseat of the Hyundai where their son was sleeping. Grabbing the door handle, she flung it open, reached in and yanked the sleeping boy from the backseat. The shock of the cold rain jolted him awake. Amiri squirmed and tried to break free from his mother’s grip. 

     Suddenly David’s wife leapt from the car, aggressively pulling Amiri from his mother’s grip. The two women wrestled in the rain, arms fledging, feet slipping, mascara streaking down their cheeks as the storm raged around them. 

     Pushing Amiri behind her, she confronted his mother. “What the hell are you doing? Why would you treat him like that? Are you crazy?” She paused and looked pointedly at Sabrina. “My apologies, clearly you are.” 

    “You, or that whore-ass husband of yours can’t have my son!” She screamed in a violent rage. 

     Sabrina pulled a gun from her purse and fired two shots at point blank range; the bullets hit David’s wife, as she stood in front of Amiri protecting him. She grabbed her stomach as blood began to flow from her shoulder and abdomen. She fell to the ground. 

     Amiri cried out, “What have you done? Why are you doing this?” 

     With the gun still in her hand, Sabrina grabbed Amiri by the wrist and said, “Stop whimpering! You’re my son! Don’t ask me nothing!”

     Until that point, David had remained in the car trying to compose himself before intervening. Sabrina always brought out the worst in him. When it came to the protection of his wife and son, he didn’t know where his anger would lead. 

     Hearing the shots, a surge of adrenaline burst through him. Getting out of the car he bolted towards his wife. David fell to his knees, gathered his wife’s limp body into his arms, eyes widened, he looked at Sabrina in disbelief. 

     Sabrina was relentless; void of remorse, absent of empathy. With a wild, crazed look in her eyes, Sabrina pointed the gun at their son, her gaze fixed on the boy’s father. 

     “Mama please! Please don’t!” Amiri screamed, his voice trembling. In a final plea for his life, he clasped his hands as if to pray. “Please Mama don’t!”

    “Damn it! If I can’t have him, neither can you! We’ll be one big happy family in Hell.” 

To be continued. . . . . . .