Life Without Hope (64 page)

... this trial and bearing you a beautiful son.”

“
Son?” I repeated as I cried.

“
Yes, Marcus is your son,” she said and reached up and feath-

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ered my cheek with a delicate finger. Promise me that you will take

care of him.”

“
Okaay, okaay,” I droned as I wept sorrowfully. The pain in

my chest, I couldn’t describe, it hurt so bad. Why couldn’t God

take me? I would have gladly given my life for this woman.

The entire courtroom had taken on a still quiet. Through

blurry eyes I looked up to see Black folks in a circle around me

swaying and humming an old dirge. Hope took a deep breath, her

very last breath, “I love you,” she said and closed her eyes. She died

right there in my arms, in them white folks’ so-called cour thouse.

She had a victorious smile on her face.

The medics arrived. Blazack and my stepmother had to wres-

tle me away from Hope’s lifeless body.

*****

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Epilogue

Epilogue

“
The Beginning”

–
Life –

A year later, I married Black Pearl on August 21. Life is strange. I

am still trying to get to know my son. However, Black Pearl and

Marcus are inseparable, mother and child. She calls him Lil Man.

Black Pearl and Trina are still friends as well as business partners.

They design clothes for many companies. One of them is a com-

pany called Phat Farm. Blazack is doing time for manslaughter.

Ironically they found no body and no evidence, just an eyewitness

that saw him abduct a man in broad daylight.

Tomica, the lesbian that testified against me at my trial–I

guess God don’t like ugly. The last I heard, Tomica was str ung out

on heroin somewhere in New York, in a place called Hell’s

Kitchen. Evette, her ex-lover, is still in prison. She calls the house

from time to time to gossip with Pearl. Gucci and the rest of

Miami’s notorious Oplica Triangle crew went home. They now

own a chain of car detail businesses. Major, my all-purpose man

that was on the case with me, is doing time in a federal prison in

Edgefield, South Carolina. Two months after Big Mike was

released from prison, someone caught him at a red light and

pumped 41 bullets into his body. One for each person that he tes-

tified against. As for myself, I started a non-profit organization

called The Hope Evans Scholarship Foundation. It’s designed to

help impoverished young Black children make it to college.

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Hope’s death taught me a lot. I no longer refer to Black women as

bitches and whores. One of the world’s best kept secrets is, a Black

woman gave birth to humanity, and historically, she had been used

and abused, histor y stolen and relegated as just a woman, when in

all actuality she was the first “Womb-man.” To date, AIDS is the

number one killer of young Black women. Black women are 25

times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS than white women.

The leading cause of HIV among Black men is having sex with

other men. The leading cause of HIV among black women is hav-

ing sex with men.

I’m still tr ying to survive with this thing called

Life

.

THE END!

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