Chapter 12

Kyle woke up with a start. Sitting up in bed, he glanced around the dark room, his eyes focusing on the digital clock at his bedside. The time read 11:45 PM. For some reason, he always woke up at that time when he had that nightmare. Getting out of bed, he flipped on the nightlight and walked into the bathroom. He turned on the light and ran water from the faucet. Splashing water on his face, he stood up straight and looked in the mirror. He saw himself staring back. He was still spooked. The nightmare always did that to him. It didn’t make any sense! Kyle turned off the light and went back to his bedroom. Knowing he wasn’t going to get back to sleep for a while, he turned on the television and absentmindedly flipped through the channels. But try as he might, he couldn’t shake what woke him up in the first place. A gunshot. He could practically feel the cold steel against his head. There were horrendous sounds all around him, people screaming, crying, or both. He could never see faces, only shadows. He heard voices, mainly a woman’s voice crying out in his dream. The shrill sound of her voice always made him want to run to her, run in the direction her voice was coming from but something always held him back. When her voice was silenced, he felt pain. When he felt the gun against his head, and heard the subsequent gunshot he always woke up with the feeling of overwhelming sadness.

Payback. Payback for all he had ever done in his life. His recurring nightmare was just a sign that he was going to get his very, very soon. There was no mistaking it. Mama had always told him what would happen if he chose the wrong path, but he ignored her warnings and kept hustling. He could see her face now. She was sitting in her favorite chair in the corner of the living room, clutching her cross, with tears in her eyes. The look on her face haunted him now, but at the time he ignored it. They’d been arguing about his drug dealing. He was eighteen, a bad ass, and making his money in the streets. The niggas around the way respected him and hated him. The ladies loved him. He was doing it real big as one of the area‘s up and coming dealers. He was on his way out the door as she tried to hold him back, tried to keep him from leaving the house and jumping into his homeboy’s waiting car. He remembered telling her to back up off him. The sound of his voice made Mama step back and move to her chair. She clutched her silver cross and whispered with tears in her eyes that she didn’t want her baby to die in the streets. He stood and stared at her for what seemed like eternity before the horn from his boy’s car blasted and he tumbled on out of the door.

That was the last time he saw his mother. An hour after he left with his boys, they got busted by the cops. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison for riding dirty. During that time, his mother never came to see him. He understood why. He had disappointed her. Near the end of his prison term she died of cancer at forty-eight. He hadn’t even known she was sick. After she died, he had no one. His father died of a heart attack when he was twelve. He was allowed to go to his mother’s funeral. When he got back to the prison, the guard handed him a letter that was from his mother. He read it. In the letter, she had talked about all the things she had wanted for him since he was a baby. How sorry she was that she couldn’t be the father he needed after his father died. How it broke her heart that he stopped going to church after his father’s death. She talked about how badly she wanted him to make something of himself and not resort to the street life. How she blamed herself for not having the money to take him out of the environment they lived in in Newark. Then she spoke of how she still had hope that he could turn out to be something more. She talked about how she wanted him to leave Newark and search for a better life in a place where he belonged. Then she revealed that he was adopted and that while she only briefly met his birth parents, she knew they were good people. She knew that she was dying and that once she did, he would have no one. She wanted him to go to Los Angeles to search for his birth family so that he would not be alone in the world. That was the last thing, the only thing she wanted him to do for her. Her revelations had shocked him. He had never known he was adopted. Even though he didn’t look much like either of his parents, he always figured he took after someone else in their line, a grandparent or such. Now knowing that he was adopted brought new questions to him that needed answers. So when he was released from prison he packed up what little he had and the money his mother had saved for him and headed out to Los Angeles in search of his birthparents. He know understood why he always felt drawn to that city, he had family there and didn’t know it.

Now he’d been in L.A. for a few months but his search so far had led to dead ends. The adoption papers he had gotten from his mother yielded no clues. There were blacked out lines where his birth parents’ names should have been. His only clue was the name of the agency that handled his adoption. They hadn’t been of any help either, telling him that his adoption was a closed one and that could not release his birth parents’ names. They only information they offered was the name of the hospital where he was born and suggested he go there. He put off going to Cedars-Sinai for a few weeks while he looked for a job and an apartment. Now that he’d found both, he was going to resume his search. Tomorrow he’d go to the hospital and try his luck there. He only hoped that they’d be understanding and offer him a clue to his past that would unlock long buried secrets he had never known.

After channel surfing aimlessly, Kyle finally shut off the TV and got back under the covers. Before turning off the light, he reached into his nightstand and took out his bottle of sleeping pills. Popping one in his mouth, he took a swig of the now warm water he kept by his bedside. If anything else, he needed to the pills to get a good night’s rest. They helped when his nightmares kept him awake. Many ghosts from his past haunted him, his mother’s, his father’s, victims of the foul s*** he had done. Then there was always that gunshot that chilled him to the bone and he was always left with that terrible feeling. Kyle closed his eyes, wishing that the morning sun would soon come and the nightmares would slither back in to that black box in the back of his mind for another day.

TBC…