In Between Men - An Excerpt:

ONE

"Shoot

her Mama! Just kill her!" Hope Williams looked down with amazement at the little girl who couldn't have been anymore than five years old. She could tell by the bloodthirsty expression on her otherwise angelic looking face that the little girl was dead serious. Hope focused again on the "mama" standing near the front bumper of a gleaming white Mercedes. The woman had a tight grip on the hobo bag that was wrapped over her shoulder, and it wasn't hard for Hope to imagine her pulling out some sort of automatic weapon.

The nasty remark that she had been about to make died a quick death. She was not about to get herself killed in a parking lot shoot out especially considering she didn't have anything to shoot with other than her mouth! Yeah the other woman was wrong she had parked too damn close to the yellow line. Hope always, always parked squarely between the lines. And it wasn't always easy in the big assed Navigator her husband insisted she drive. She took a deep breath before attempting to reason with the woman again.

"Look, I'm just saying that I can't get into my truck. Will you please move your car over? I don't want anything to happen to your paint job or mine." Hope said it with as much pleasantness as she could muster, but she couldn't control the slight roll of her neck.

"I ain't movin' a goddamn thang! And I don't give a fuck about yo paint job, but lemme come outta this bitch and find a scratch on my car." The "bitch" that she referred to was the exclusive boutique that Hope had just left. "You betta get in the best way you know how. Bring yo ass on here Shairaqetria!" She grabbed the little girls' hand and walked away, not even looking back to see what Hope might do.

Hope felt all the bad habits that she had learned and left in the mean streets of South Dallas pleading with her, come on Hope, you don't have to take that! Kick her ass! Fuck up her car, damn gurl how you goin' let her do you like that? But the memory of the little girl pleading with her mother to commit murder kept her quiet. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, her mother always said.

She walked to the passenger side of her truck and pressed the small button on her keychain to open the door. Hope draped the garment bag across the seat and climbed in and over the center console to get to the driver's seat cursing under her breath the entire time.

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