EPILOGUE
With Thanksgiving right around the corner and so much money still in her grasp with business being good, Apple decided to treat herself. So, with the help of Chico and his business manager, she went to an upscale Mercedes dealership in Long Island, and Chico purchased her the sleek, pricey, silver McLaren. A one-of-a-kind. When Apple got behind the wheel of the stylish car, with its lustrous aero design and 5.5L V8 engine, she knew she would be the most envied person in the city.
As Apple drove the car off the lot that afternoon, she couldn’t wait to flaunt her new ride in Harlem and elsewhere. She wanted to turn heads, show the whole hood how much she came up. She went from having a bus pass to driving one of the best-looking cars that Mercedes ever made.
It had been weeks since her fight with Kola, and she had been laying low for a while. Chico had moved them out of the city, about an hour and a half away from Harlem, and into an upstate four-bedroom mini-mansion with a sprawling green lawn, a hilltop driveway leading to a three-car garage, and a picturesque view of the river. Apple loved every inch of her new home.
For a while, her life seemed easygoing and separated from the war going on in Harlem, where she still ran her loan-sharking and bookkeeping business. Guy Tony had disappeared for a moment, and she hadn’t seen or heard from Kola or her mother in weeks. It seemed that her beef had died down a little.
Wanting to show off her car, she decided to take the long drive back into the city and cruise around Harlem on this sunny fall day. She looked good, styling in the gleaming McLaren and smiling at all the heads that turned to get a peek at her new ride.
Apple didn’t give a second thought to all the drama she had stirred up and the lives she’d turned upside down. The only thing she cared about was how fly she looked driving the expensive car that only celebrities and athletes could afford. She wanted all eyes on her. She loved the hate thrown at her, because it was proof that she was doing her thang and doing it right. Like Dave Chappelle, she wanted to shout out, “I’m rich, bitch!”
For an hour, Apple drove around Harlem, block to block, showing off her new car. She parked in front of her old building, stepped out in her designer jacket and heels, and profiled in front of her McLaren like she was in a video shoot. She lingered in her old hood for a moment, enjoying being seen, mostly gawked at by bitches that wanted to be her, and niggas that wanted to f-uck her. A few residents stopped to chat with her, admiring her car, but she warned them to only look, not touch.
Apple soon got tired and decided to leave. She had made her statement loud and clear. For her, it felt so good to show off. She was about to get back into her ride, feeling invincible and accomplished, ready to make the two-hour drive back upstate, but the sudden calling of her name made her turn to see who was asking for her.
As she turned, a crackhead, who had been paid to do the deed, threw a cup full of acid in her face before running away.
“Aaaaaahhhh!” she screamed, clutching her burning face in agony and falling to her knees, the acid eating away at her beautiful face.
A small crowd gathered around her as she squirmed around on the concrete in pain, her cries echoing throughout the streets. Some were happy about the incident, watching her suffer with a pleased smile, thinking that the bitch got what she deserved, others felt sorry for her and tried to help.
As her face burned, Apple vowed to get revenge on whoever disfigured her beautiful face. She knew it could have been anyone, from her sister to Guy-Tony. Or it could’ve been just a random act of jealousy.
Apple was quickly rushed to intensive care, where she soon found out that her face would be disfigured for life.
To be continued . . .
KEEP READING FOR AN EXCERPT OF
COCA KOLA
COMING IN MARCH 2012 FROM MELODRAMA PUBLISHING
PROLOGUE
The midnight staff at Harlem Hospital was busy with an influx of incoming patients. The trauma unit was understaffed, and the hallway was lined with the sick and injured that needed to be treated. The echoes of the men and women in agony seemed never ending to the doctors and nurses that were bustling back and forth from one patient to the next. The EMS was daunted with nine-one-one calls. It seemed like everybody had either fallen ill, gotten shot or stabbed, or were complaining about some unknown sickness, and had come to Harlem Hospital for treatment.
The third shift working the trauma center was exhausted, hungry, and swamped from wall-to-wall with the ill, some who needed to be restrained and some fighting to be kept alive from their injuries. But, the following patient that the Ambulance brought in screamed the loudest and was definitely out of control. She was barely strapped down to the gurney and had suffered serious burns to most of her face.
As the staff hurried her into the center, she constantly screamed out, “I’ma kill that bitch! I’ma kill that fuckin’ bitch! Aaaah, shit, it hurts! It hurts! It fuckin’ hurts!”
Apple was in sheer pain. The medical team wanted to treat her as quickly as possible, but Apple wasn’t allowing them to do their jobs sufficiently as she kicked, screamed, and squirmed on the rushing gurney.
“Get the f-uck off me! Get off me!” Apple yelled, sounding crazy.
“Ma’am, just calm down. We’re trying to help you. Just stay calm,” the night RN said, while trying to hold Apple down on the gurney with the help of the others.
“What happened to you?” another nurse asked.
Apple refused to be cooperative, though. She continued kicking and screaming, feeling her face melting away painfully like the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz.
She screamed out, “My fuckin’ face! My fuckin’ face! I’ma kill that bitch! Aaaah!”
“She needs to be sedated,” the doctor said.
After wheeling Apple into a private room they started prepping her for an emergency surgery. The sedative was being prepared, and the doctors wanted to tend to the burns right away. By the looks of her injuries, they were confident that Apple would need some severe skin grafting.
The screaming continued, echoing through the trauma center. It took security and four staff members to hold Apple down while the RN tried to stick the syringe filled with a sedative into her arm. But, Apple put up a tough fight; she kicked one of the nurses into a shelf filled with medical supplies that spilled over.
“Hold her down!” the doctor screamed out.
“Get off meeee!” she yelled.
She tried to bite the second nurse, but her arms were forced to her side with physical force by security. The RN quickly thrust the syringe into Apple’s right arm, hoping it worked promptly.
Apple’s chest heaved and dropped like a winded athlete, with her facial expression looking more soothing and the wildness in her slowly fading. There was finally some calm in the room.
“Shit!” the RN exclaimed, shocked that the teenage girl was so strong.
Immediately, they began working on her burns. The doctor tried to operate the best he could on her face, but the acid had done severe damage. It would take a miracle for Apple to look the way she used to.
*****
Hours later, Apple lay in the room and slowly opened her eyes to find her face heavily bandaged. She touched the dressing slowly and gently. She was still loopy from the sedative, but realizing how ugly she must be, she started to cry. It had to be a nightmare for her.
When she closed her eyes to try and stop the crying, she heard a nurse say, “You need to rest.”
Turning to look at the short, round nurse clad in blue and white scrubs, Apple yelled, “I want a plastic surgeon.” When the nurse hesitated, Apple screamed, “Now, bitch!”
“Ma’am, you need to rest.”
“Fuck that! Look at me!” she cried out.
The shaded, but saddened look on the nurse’s face said she felt sympathy for the young girl. She wanted to console the eighteen-year-old, but thought against it. Instead, she checked Apple’s IV flow, jotted something down on a clipboard, and walked out the room, leaving Apple feeling alone and disgusted.
She fell asleep again and woke up hours later in the burn unit. She was alone in the room, and the only thing on her mind was revenge. Every time she touched the bandages that covered most of her burned face, she fumed with rage and then began to cry with the realization that she was no longer beautiful.
Chico rushed into the hospital searching for his woman. He argued with security and then a few staff members, shouting, “Where’s my fuckin’ girl?”
One of Apple’s doctors escorted Chico toward the burn unit where she was recuperating and heavily sedated. He stopped at the doorway with a look of shock registering on his face. He couldn’t believe it. She looked like a mummy as she lay in bed.
“What the f-uck,” he uttered.
Apple slowly turned to see her love, Chico, standing in the doorway, but she didn’t say a word to him. The medication in her system was making her drowsy and delirious. Her burns were itching and painful, but she couldn’t scratch.
Chico rushed into the room, took Apple’s hand into his, looked at her with that firm love in his eyes, and demanded to know, “Baby, who the f-uck did this shit to you? Just give me a fuckin’ name, and they dead. I promise you that.”
Apple locked eyes with her boyfriend and constantly repeated, “Kola . . . Kola . . . Kola.”