Read Online A Good Dude by Keith Thomas Walker - Free Book Online Page B

pleasant aromas from whatever Trisha was making in the kitchen. None of her children were in school yet, so they stayed up as late as 2 a.m. most nights.
    Trisha emerged from the kitchen after a while looking like a Waffle House waitress. She toted two plates in one hand and had a third plate and a bottle in the other. She placed them on her dining table and called her children over for a late meal.
    “You gonna eat over here or in front of the TV?” she asked Candace.
    “I didn’t know you were making anything for me.”
    “I didn’t make this for you. I just had some left over. Do you want it or not?”
    “What is it?” Candace asked.
    “Hamburger Helper.”’
    “What kind?”
    “What you mean what kind? They all the same, girl; noodles, meat, and seasoning. I don’t know what kind it is.” Candace said she’d try it.
    Trisha got her kids settled at the table and brought Candace’s plate to the couch. She took Willie Jr. and sat down with him on the love seat. She bottle-fed him rather than pop out her boob this time, much to Candace’s delight.
    “Did they let you talk to him before they carried him off?” Trisha asked.
    Candace munched on a mouthful of noodles before responding. It was pretty good stuff. “They wouldn’t let me talk to him. I don’t think he even saw me.”
    “You a bad bitch,” Trisha said, “running up on them cops like that.”
    “I don’t think it was me who did that,” Candace said. “I was, like, in a daze. I never felt like that before.”
    “Cops don’t care if you in a daze,” Trisha informed. “They’ll still crack yo head with they flashlight.”
    “They didn’t give me any special treatment,” Candace informed. “Look at my arm.” She lifted her sleeve to show a purple, thumb-sized bruise on her bicep.
    “Uhn-uhn. Girl, you should sue.”
    “Sue for what?”
    “They not supposed to be putting they hands all on you.”
    “They’re not supposed to sit on someone’s neck, either, but they did that.”
    “They sat on Rilla’s neck?”
    “Yeah,” Candace said and downed another mouthful. Trisha had a way with food. Hamburger Helper meals didn’t call for paprika, but Candace tasted it. There was thyme in there, too. “It was a real fat cop, too. I tried to run up to him. I think I was gonna hit him or something.”
    Trisha chuckled. “That’s romantic . I can see yo pregnant ass doing that shit, too.”
    “There was nothing romantic about my day,” Candace said. “Watching Rilla on the ground like that . . . .” She shivered. “I get chills every time I think about it.”
    Trisha nodded knowingly. She wiped her baby’s nose and asked, “Them people still won’t tell you what his bail is?”
    Candace had made at least ten calls to the county jail since getting home.
    “No. He’s still not arraigned yet.”
    “That’s messed up. Bet they don’t be doing white people like that. They tell them what they charged with right then. They don’t wait no eight hours to get arraigned.”
    Candace didn’t know if that was true or not, but the longer they held Rilla with no charges, the longer she could hold out hope for a happy ending.
    “They arrested my nephew for murder when I was pregnant with Peter,” Trisha said. “They held him in the county jail for two years. When they couldn’t build a case against him, they just turned him loose. They made him do two years for nothing.”
    Candace’s whole face drooped. She brought a hand to her mouth and chewed on her longest fingernail.
    “Did Rilla have dope on him?” Trisha asked.
    “I don’t know,” Candace said. “I know he sells dope over there. That’s the only reason he goes to those apartments.” She scraped up her last spoonful of Hamburger Helper and almost licked the plate clean. She stood and took it to the kitchen instead.
    “That was good. Thanks.”
    “It’s cool. You can eat over here whenever you want to. And if you get lonely at your apartment, you can spend the