Natural Born Hustler by Nikki Turner

were destroyed in New York.
    “How are you two doing today?” asked Magistrate Dobbson. She was 44 years young, her blond hair wrestling with gray and her figure reflecting a penchant for good cooking. After both Fame and Desember said they were okay, she lifted a paper from her cluttered desk. “Famis Maurauder and Desember Day,” she read from the warrant. “You two like to beat up on each other, huh?”
    Desember tried to explain first how they had just had a misunderstanding and nothing like this had happened before, Fame agreeing to whatever she said. They only wanted a bond and to get out of there.
    “Well,” Magistrate Dobbson said, gazing at them both to try to see if they were being honest with her, “from the looks of it, things got pretty ugly. Domestic violence is no small matter. Something I’ve never tolerated, and I don’t intend to start now.” She gave them a lecture.
    Fame looked at Desember, wondering what the hell they’d gotten themselves into.
    “This is what I’m gonna do,” the magistrate continued, “I’m gonna give you a two-thousand-dollar cash bond, each …”
    Then she hit them with the whammy when she said, “I’mgoing to implement a mandatory restraining order on the two of you for a period of four weeks. Maybe this’ll give you kids a chance to think about something besides hitting each other.”
    “But we live together,” Desember protested.
    “Not for the next four weeks you don’t.”

Revelations

12.
ICU
    It was well into the wee hours of the morning when someone entered the chapel, snapping Desember out of thoughts of her and Fame’s relationship over the past few months.
    Despite feeling like ten-pound weights were fastened to her eyelids she raised them. Unaware of the hours that had lapsed since her arrival at the hospital, Desember tried to wipe the sleep from her tired eyes so they could better focus on the two people standing before her.
    Her eyes adjusted to the light and as the two people moved closer, she recognized Nurse Shelia, who had given her the change of clothes, with a doctor wearing blue surgical scrubs in tow.
    Desember thought maybe she should stand to hear what the doctor had to say, so she tried to rise to her feet. “Stay seated,”the doctor said in the voice of a man who had been tirelessly working to save a life, or lives, all night and was inured to the long hours. She knew that he was there to bring her the information that she’d been anxiously awaiting … or maybe dreading.
    Desember didn’t know what to think. An array of emotions raced through her mentally and physically drained body: fear, hate, anxiety, and hope as she waited to hear what the doctor had to say. She studied his lips, and the words seemed to be coming out of his mouth in slow motion, maybe because she was so eager to hear what he had to say, words that would impact the remainder of her life.
    “We removed the bullets but they caused a lot of internal damage.” The doctor never lost eye contact with her as tears filled hers. “Because of the inflamed damage, we had to leave his abdomen open, which could cause infection.”
    A teardrop of happiness rolled down her face. He was going to live. She knew it . He was going to live!
    “The next twenty-four hours are crucial. We’re really worried about infection setting in.”
    Desember sobbed, but in her heart she felt the worst had passed.
    “He’s a real fighter,” the doctor said, encouraging her hope.
    “When can I see him?” she managed to ask him between sobs.
    “He’s going to be in the intensive care unit in a short while and you will be able to see him.”

    As soon as Fame was moved into the ICU, Desember sat patiently on one side of the bed, his mother on the other. SinceFrancine still didn’t know the details surrounding the shooting, she didn’t have much to say to Desember, but she could sense that the girl loved her son.
    At the twenty-fifth hour since the shooting, Francine asked,