And she laughed.
In three minutes she had lost her job and her husband and her home. She had no family to call and even if she did her pride wouldn't let her do it. She had no money and nowhere to go and as she stood in the empty apartment they once shared, she laughed. Knowing very well that in a few hours she would be homeless, she laughed. She laughed because she could no longer cry. She had cried her entire life and now her tear ducts were empty. Her mother died when she was 14 years old and her father had died 4 years earlier. She was a victim of the system. She had ridden the foster care train until they kicked her off at 18. 4 years, 6 foster homes and never adopted. She wasn't bad, just older than anyone wanted to adopt and so she floated.
By what she saw as some miracle, she had met a man just one month before the system spit her out. A man that gave her attention she hadn't had in a long time. He gave her affection she hadn't received since her mother kissed her forehead on her death bed. So she was released and he took her in. He provided for her and took care of her and she knew it must be a dream because things like this never happened to her. In 5 months he put her up on game. She didn't have to stand out on the block; she just had to bag it before he took it there. She didn't see anything wrong with it, after all what else was she going to do. "Someone's gotta do it, might as well be me" that's what she told herself every morning as she divided up the various products. She wasn't working for free either; he paid her for her work just as he paid his other employees. He loved her true enough, but this was the only life he knew, and he prayed every night that it was good enough for her. In 6 more months they were married, she had his last name and for the first time in a long time she had a family again.
She was 19 years old and married to a drug lord and happier than she had been in years. She was 20 years old, married to THE drug lord and happier than she had been in any time that she could remember. Then it happened, while she was putting their plates on the table for dinner, her life came crashing down. The door broke down, men rushed in, too many voices in too many directions. They grabbed him. They grabbed her. He screamed for them to leave her. "It's just me! It's just me! That's all you want any way!" They threw her to the ground because he was all they wanted; they just wanted to mess with him. She watched them drag her love away and throw him into the car with the flashing lights like he was less than human. The last one to leave the house told her to be gone by this time tomorrow or she'd be heading the same place her man was.
She woke up the next morning with the words of the officer in her ear and the last images of her husband in her eyes. There was no money in the house; the cops had cleaned them out. There was no one to call the cops had cleaned up the most reliable participants of her husband's operation. She was alone and broke and had nowhere to go, so she sat. She sat there all day. She stood in front of the door laughing, waiting for it to open. She knew they would be back to pick up anything they overlooked last night. She waited. She laughed. She knew she couldn't survive on the streets so leaving was not an option. She laughed. She waited. Three knocks on the door before the same officer walked in and looked her in the face. "I told you not to be here" She was silent; she looked him in the eyes as if to burn a hole into his soul. "If you just leave now, I'll say no one was here. You're pretty young girl and prison is not what you want." She had nothing left to lose. "Don't tell me what I want." He gave her a sideways look. "Now just walk out the--" "Don't tell me what to do mother f***er" She didn't care anymore. "I been real nice about this miss, so--" "F**k you and your fake *ss generosity" She was gone. He read her rights, cuffed her and drove her away. She knew what she was doing, she figured she'd get at least five years and for five years she'd have a place to sleep and food to eat and maybe a little job to keep her occupied. She might be able to get a degree and possibly do something with herself once she got out. But for now, this was her only option. As they put her in her cell and shut the door she sat down, looked around and laughed.