Control, page 25
“SHIT!” Joe yelled, pulling the wheel of the SUV harder to the left. But it was already too late. With an eighteen-wheeler truck and cargo, there was nowhere for the SUV to escape an accident. But Joe tried, as he sped through the median and into a grass area off the road, where the SUV smashed into a massive tree.
BOOMM!
On impact, Joe’s head and neck jerked forward like a rag doll, as the airbag engaged from the steering wheel and pushed him back into the driver’s seat. But again, it was too late. Even with his seat belt on, the brutal impact of the tree had already done fatal damage to his spine. Joe didn’t even have a chance to blink before he died behind the wheel.
MRS. MELODY
Reflection 39
“WHY WOULD YOU FUCKIN’ DO THAT SHIT?” MRS. MELODY snapped into her cell phone at Gary. She considered his antics childish, and he was a grown-ass man!
Gary didn’t even deny it. He said, “I’m just letting you know that there’s reper-cussions out here to how you move. And you gettin’ a li’l cocky now. But everybody can be touched out here. So, you need to think about that the next time you try to play a motherfucka! ’Cause I play for keeps.”
Melody had driven her car and parked in a barren area of Atlanta, where she climbed out to be as loud as she wanted to be on her cell phone. She carried another expensive handbag with her gun inside. And she remained incensed. A jealous grown man was the worst!
“So, you admit it then?” she questioned him. Gary’s blunt honesty had caught her off guard. She expected to have to bend the truth out of him.
He said, “Ain’t no shame to my game. And that toy-ass punk you got over there and sayin’ shit.”
Melody calmed down and thought about it. She was not only intensifying the issue for herself, she was also pulling BJ further into it. So, she thought better about her anger.
She said, “You know what? You’re right. I need to get my head in order. So, you got me on that one. Now he don’t fuckin’ trust me,” she lied. She knew that was what Gary wanted to hear. Jealous people loved negative stories. So, she gave him one.
Gary said, “You did that shit to yourself. Atlanta is small. We all know each other out here. In fact, I could have people watching you right now,” he warned her.
Right as he said it, Mrs. Melody angled to her left and spotted a Black man dressed in all dark clothes, lurking. Paranoid, she immediately panicked and reached inside her bag for her gun.
“Why you got people following me?” she asked Gary, with her heart racing. “That shit is so petty!”
She had her fingers on the trigger of the gun while it was still inside her bag. But the prowling man in dark clothes continued to approach her, as if she had a can of Mace in her bag, instead of a loaded gun.
Gary told her, “I’m not saying I got people following you. I’m just saying you never know who’s watching.”
With Gary still on the phone with her, Mrs. Melody pulled her gun out to address the man who was steadily approaching.
“I got more than Mace in here, mother-fucka!” she barked at him with her gun out.
The man finally stopped and looked. He was hesitant at first, but then he spoke to her defiantly.
“Don’t pull it out if you not gon’ use it,” he warned her. He shoved both of his hands into his dark hoodie jacket, as if daring her for a shoot-out.
Over the phone, Gary asked her, “What’s going on?” He sounded confused.
Melody said, “You know what’s going on? You got you’re fuckin’ goon out here following me. And I got a gun for his ass!”
When the lurking man made a move toward her, Mrs. Melody lost her mind and started shooting in his direction.
POP! POP! POP!
“What the fuck?” Gary blurted over the line.
More prepared than she was at gunplay, the man at the scene dropped to the ground and immediately pulled out his own gun to fire back with better aim.
BOP! BOP! BOP! BOP!
A bullet caught Mrs. Melody in her abdomen and another in her left shoulder.
“Unnnhhh,” she moaned, crashing back into the driver’s-side door of her car, while dropping the gun.
Not liking how his potential robbery had gone sour, the man quickly jumped to his feet and took off running, leaving the sexy rap artist alone to bleed against her car.
“The fuck is going on?” Gary continued to ask over the phone.
With blood leaking fast, Melody ignored him and pulled the car door open with her right hand and good shoulder to climb behind the wheel. She pressed the automatic start button to ignite the engine. Only then did she remember to call 9-1-1. Gary had distracted her from the thought while he was still on the line.
“Yo, what’s going on?” he asked her urgently.
Mrs. Melody cut him off the line and called 9-1-1. But by the time they answered, she was losing consciousness.
“Did someone call nine-one-one?” a female operator asked.
“Yeah,” Melody mumbled. And that was it.
“Are you okay . . . ? Caller . . . ? Caller . . . ? Melody Anderson. . . ? Are you still there . . . ? Caller . . . ?”
CHARLES CLAY
Reflection 40
CHARLES’S PRODUCTION PARTNER, JACQUELINE CLARK, WAS ON another call at her home office with a film affiliate they had recently produced a project with.
“So, what does he need the money for? He doesn’t seem to have bad spending habits. I don’t see Charles flaunting and whatnot,” the affiliate commented.
While she was on speakerphone to free her hands for her computer, it was a difficult question for Jackie to answer. She didn’t want to put Charles’s business out there, but his desperate phone calls for new projects had quickly become troublesome for both of them. And everyone was calling her about it, even after normal work hours.
“I don’t know. I’ll need to talk to him and see,” Jackie lied. She knew exactly what Charles needed the money for. The rumors were already beginning to swirl concerning his sexual conduct with aspiring actresses.
Right on cue, the film affiliate asked Jackie, “He’s not in some kind of trouble with the actors, is he? People been asking about his relationships on and off the set.”
Jackie sighed, feeling the weight of the impending drama. Whether she had cut Charles off or not, she was still in the middle of his life and career. No one even knew that she had stopped doing business with him yet. Their breakup was still fresh, and she was not ready to tell anyone why. She was still trying to figure it all out while keeping herself busy.
She said, “I’m gonna talk to him tonight. But people are always talking about rumors on the set. You know that.”
“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t pay it any mind when I first heard it. But if he’s calling around for new projects to earn fast money, then something’s definitely goin’ on with him,” the film affiliate commented. “Money was never a conversation with Charles. That’s why everybody wanted to get him for cheap,” he added with a chuckle. “If you weren’t around, he would have been directing movies for peanuts.”
Jackie allowed herself a slight chuckle. “Don’t I know it,” she responded. “But I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“All right, keep me posted.”
“I will.”
As soon as she hung up the line, Jackie exhaled with her head dropping forward as if her neck had run out of muscles. That’s how long of a day it had been from putting out fires, and Charles’s fires were the biggest.
“He dun’ pulled me into this shit with him anyway,” she told herself. She clapped her hands for effect and barked, “I knew it.”
She stood up and shook her head in front of her desk with no idea what to do with herself. “Okay, I’ll call Jeffrey first,” she plotted. She didn’t care what time it was. It was an emergency.
She planned to leave the seasoned attorney a message to call her back, but she was surprised when he answered his phone on the second ring.
“Jacqueline, I’m glad you called,” he told her immediately.
Jackie hesitated. “Why?”
“We’ve had a serious change of events with Charles,” he answered.
Her heart started racing as she listened. “I know. How bad is it?”
“Is it just me and you?” he asked her.
“Yes. I’m alone at my office. And I’ve been getting phone calls all day,” she told him.
“I can imagine. Are you sitting down?”
She paused. “Is it that bad?”
“Yes.”
Jackie sat back down at her desk.
“Okay. I’m seated.”
The attorney said, “A young woman has a tape on him now. And it’s only audio, but it’s crystal clear. And he’s directing her to do some . . . things. Now, of course, we would argue that’s it’s not him. But if the media gets their hands on it . . .”
Jackie sunk her face into her hands. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah, he’s really gotten himself in bad shape. And a few of the lawyers have upped their case to full-blown sexual assault now. Because he’s been physical.”
“But it’s consensual, right? I mean, you know he wasn’t raping these girls,” Jackie defended him. “He’s not that kind of a monster. Charles doesn’t even have that in him.”
“It doesn’t matter at this point. It just keeps getting more expensive to defend him.”
“So, what are you saying?” she questioned.
“It’s pretty much out of our hands,” Jeffrey leveled with her. “He’s not a Weinstein at the top. He’s a Clay at the bottom. You hear what I’m telling you? You know how this country works. So, I would advise you to protect your own career. You can’t help him anymore.”
“Well, I knew that already. He’s so full of it, he won’t even allow me to help him. I just didn’t know it was gonna get this deep.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s deep. And with him calling around asking for new directing jobs without you, that doesn’t look good for him either.”
She said, “I know, right. That’s what half of my calls were about today. It’s like he doesn’t even realize that these people are gonna call me. He doesn’t even talk about the business. So, they know something’s up.”
Jeffrey said, “Yeah. And you didn’t know anything about it. You have to repudiate everything the media says. Okay? We have to do this very strategically.”
Jackie nodded. She didn’t have a choice in the matter. “Okay.”
“And if you speak to him at all, I want you to focus strictly on why he’s asking people for directing jobs and other business deals without you. That makes it look like he’s doing something on his own. Which he is.”
Jackie sighed and felt sorry for the director. In just a matter of weeks, Charles’s career was headed down the drain.
She said, “I got you. I have to steer clear of any talk about his case.”
Jeffrey said, “Thank God he turned down your offer to help him before you wrote out a deal memo. That could have been used to hurt your stance of innocence. But now it’ll look like he’s out there trying to raise his own money.”
“Because he didn’t want me to know anything about it,” Jackie filled in.
“Exactly,” Jeffrey agreed with her. “That’s how you’ll have to play it.”
Jackie shook her head again and couldn’t believe it. “It seems like just yesterday, we were setting ourselves up to do some major film deals. Now this happens.”
“It’s called life,” Jeffrey told her. “And we can’t control how everyone decides to live it. All we can do is respond to it as best we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones.”
In closing, Jackie nodded again. “Thanks for taking my call tonight,” she told him.
He said, “I had to. That’s why I’m still in the office now. It’s been a lonnng day.”
Jackie grinned and said, “Tell me about it.”
“Have a good sleep,” he told her.
“You too.”
When Jackie hung up, she thought of calling Charles immediately to test out her responses to him. She was curious to see how he would account for his actions.
She even practiced her controlled tone. “How could you call these people and not think they’re gonna call me? I mean, what are you doing? What do you need the money for?”
She stood from her chair as if practicing for a scene in a film.
“You’ve been trying to do films for free, forever. Now you’re calling around looking for money projects without me. What’s going on?”
Satisfied with her delivery, she then practiced her response to any conversation regarding his case.
“What? What are you talking about? Explain yourself.”
She stopped and listened to his imaginary response.
“Are you crazy? Why would I do that? Are you confusing real life with one of these movies? What are you talking about? Are you high on something?”
She stopped again and shook it off. “Nah, that’s too much,” she told herself. “Just keep your cool and stick to being boring.”
Then she eyed the phone and took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
She dialed Charles’s cell phone number and waited as the phone rang. And rang. And rang. With no answer. His message didn’t even click on.
“Hmmph,” Jackie grunted to herself. “Did he erase his messages?”
Maybe he did, she mused. Especially if people started calling him like they know something.
Jackie realized that Charles couldn’t take the pressure of a massive failure. That’s why he shied away from the bigger-budget films. He wasn’t comfortable with them. And she was right. Charles preferred to remain in his small niche, where he could control more. He was more interested in becoming a specialist than focusing on the big-event movies that Jackie wanted.
But it was too late for that now. Charles’s personal life was about to be broadcast on a major level, and not for good things. And there was nothing he could do about it.
* * *
As Charles’s cell phone rang over and over again at his office, the celebrated director with the bright future in filmmaking hung from a long and sturdy rope that was wrapped over a pole near the ceiling of his loft.
He had measured the rope from the pole near the ceiling, climbed up on a tall stool, wrapped the end of the rope around his neck, and handcuffed his wrists behind his back with official police steel, before he kicked the tall stool away with his feet to hang himself.
And it worked with his bare feet dangling just ten inches away from the ground.
DARK & MOODY
Reflection 41
“OH MY GOD!” TAMMY COMMENTED WITH HER HANDS OVER her mouth. She was watching the eleven o’clock Atlanta news with Dark & Moody on the living room sofa when it was reported that rising twenty-three-year-old rap artist Mrs. Melody—aka Melody Anderson—had been found shot and killed in her car that evening.
“Police authorities say it looks like an attempted robbery,” the newscasters reported from the scene.
Tammy looked over at Tasha for her response. She understood how much she had riding on the young rapper. Tammy was even jealous of her. Dark & Moody had changed her sound and everything for this girl, or at least on her latest productions.
At first, Tasha was speechless. She couldn’t gather her thoughts fast enough, while watching the TV screen without emotion. A dozen different scenarios raced through her head, starting with the phone call she had with Melody hours earlier.
“I can’t believe this petty-ass guy did that shit!” Melody had snapped over the phone. “If a girl ain’t with you no more, then speed on and get over it!”
She had been complaining about a past fling who sent text messages and a photo to her and her current boo, BJ, in an obvious attempt to ruin their relationship.
At the time, Dark & Moody had chuckled at the complaint. “That’s what happens when you move too fast from one guy to the next,” she had commented.
“Well, I don’t appreciate that shit! It was childish!” Melody ranted.
Tasha continued to smile. She said, “I knew something was up when both of y’all looked at y’all cell phones at about the same time with the same response. I just had this feeling. And when he asked you to step out in the hallway, I knew it.”
Mrs. Melody laughed and said, “Yeah, BJ knew you were snoopin’ on us too. He said he likes you though. He said he can tell you got my back. And I haven’t really had female friends like that. They always be on some jealousy shit.”
Me too, Tasha thought to herself. ’Cause you’re a sexy-ass bitch!
But while she was getting closer to Melody on the music side of things, she had been able to hold her other emotions in check.had
“Well, don’t do nothing crazy,” she had warned the impulsive rapper. “His ploy didn’t work, so don’t sweat it. Just let him be jealous.”
“Yeah, I’ll see. I just wanna let him know.”
Tasha shook her head and spoke out against it. “Girl, leave that shit alone, and move on from it. Just focus on your music. We don’t need that extra drama. Keep the drama on the dance floor,” Dark & Moody told her.
Mrs. Melody got excited again. She said, “I like that. ‘Drama on the Dance Floor.’ Write that title down for a new song.”
Dark & Moody grinned and said, “I already got it. But promise me you not gon’ do something stupid. Just let that shit go.”
“Aw’ight, I promise,” Melody agreed too fast for comfort.
Tasha paused and knew better. She said, “I’m serious, girl. Leave that shit alone. You have to stay locked in on your career. Laser focused.”
“All right, Grandmom! Shit! I got you,” Mrs. Melody had complained.
And now . . . she was dead.
The reality began to settle into Tasha’s mind, slow and lethally, as fresh tears began to swell up in her eyes. Understanding the pain of the loss, Tammy cried herself and moved in to hug her, but Dark & Moody held up her left palm to stop her.
