Buried Alive

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Rogelle

Denver

Roman

Rogelle

Laranika

Roman

Denver

Roman

Denver

Rogelle

Roman

Rogelle

Denver

Rogelle

Laranika

Roman

Denver

Rogelle

Denver

Laranika

Denver

Roman

Denver

Roman

Denver

Rogelle

Denver

Laranika

Roman

Roman

Rogelle

Denver

Roman

Rogelle

Denver

Denver

Roman

Rogelle

Denver

Roman

Denver

Laranika

Denver

Denver

Roman

Denver

Roman

Author's Notes

About the Author

Buried Alive

Brittney Nicole Boyd

Copyright © 2024 Brittney Nicole Boyd

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-88982-403-9 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88982-404-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Rogelle

May the defendant stand, the courtroom officer announced.

I slowly stood from my seat. It felt as if all eyes were on me. Not just in the court room, but it was as if the entire United States of America's eyes were glued to me as I waited to hear my fate be told. The journey to this moment was long and arduous. First, the state of Arizona fought over me with the United States of America. Then the state charges were dropped and replaced with harsher federal offenses. Then there was the battle of which federal jurisdiction would have me. During the first dozen hearing, I was attentive, alert, and present. By the time it was decided my fate, I mean my case would be heard in my hometown of Norfolk, Virginia, I was numb to these court proceedings. I tuned out the US attorney painting a picture of me to be a menace to society, like an artist standing in front of a blank canvas, as if I were a monster, not human. As if I did not feel, bleed, cry, and hurt like any other man. I drove a moving truck filled with bricks of cocaine hidden inside faulty mattresses with missing springs. I was a businessman supplying a demand. Not saying polluting your body with drugs is acceptable. Just saying there is a demand, and I was the supplier. Perhaps the efforts to eliminate the need should be enforced and you wouldn't have to worry about a supplier. What makes me different from a pharmaceutical company? I'll tell you what. I'm sitting in this courtroom facing a judge while my girlfriend who just gave birth to our twin boys sits behind me sandwiched between her mom, Sharon, and my mother, Laranika. I didn't want to look back at her because I could feel her tears. I felt her warm tears dripping down her face. I let her down. I let our sons down. I fucked up.

I was arrested at a rest stop in Arizona. Driving from Mexico, I thought I'd tricked the system. I thought I outsmarted the men who dedicated their entire identities to sabotaging communities they thought were less than but not equal to theirs. I thought I was securing the future for my family. And by family, I mean my girlfriend Denver and our sons. Not that my mother and siblings weren't worthy of my generosity, but I had tunnel vision. I wanted a family—my family, a family I created with the woman I loved, where I had the liberty to decide our lifestyle and not be assigned one. I didn't want to be a victim of my circumstance. And here I am—a victim of my circumstance.

Denver was the best thing that happened to me. Every time I looked into her eyes, it was as if I saw the spirits of the ancestors I'd never physically meet. It was as if being with her allowed me to finally breathe. It wasn't that I had a terrible childhood. But you know, a victim of my circumstance. I'm my mother's oldest child. I was born on December 31, 1988, in Norfolk General Hospital. My mother always said, You were four minutes away from being born in 1989. Capricorn the goat, that's me. My brothers Romell and Rico, and my little sister Rogernique all have different fathers. Having different fathers didn't matter to us because none of our fathers were around. And it only angered me because I saw my mother work so much, and I reasoned if she had a husband, maybe she could take a day off sometimes, maybe she could come to my honor roll lunches or Rogernique's chorus performances.

So I grew up hating a man I'd never met, assuming he just wasn't man enough to stick around. Then around my seventeenth birthday, I overheard my mother arguing with her best friend, whom we called Auntie Londa. Her name was Yolanda, and she wasn't our aunt, just my mother's best friend since the fourth grade. The argument started after a cookout in our backyard. Auntie Londa's current boyfriend was cheating on her. No surprises. That seemed to be the story of her and my mother's love life. However, this time, my mother knew and didn't tell my auntie. That was strange. They held no secrets from each other. Plus, they trauma-bonded over all their awful experiences with men. Yet my mother knew and neglected to mention it to my auntie. So brown liquor mixed with clear liquor, the nighttime summer heat, and a shit load of unpacked emotions caused the two to argue. Nothing new really. They argued. They made up and argued again. They'd call each other everything but a child of God. They'd throw each other's embarrassing memories in their faces. They'd bring their kids into it, That's why Rico's ass can't get out of the eighth grade. What's this his third year? But this time, it was my aunt saying, At least I know who the father of all my kids are. You wouldn't know Rogelle's father if he walked up to you on the street. I was expecting my mother to say, You're lying. But she didn't. Instead, she said, The only difference between me and you was that I got pregnant that night. We was both sucking and fucking our way around that party. And there it was. The story of my conception. I took into account that my mother was eighteen when she gave birth to me, which meant she was seventeen when I was conceived. Yet that story stung like lemon juice dripping inside of an open wound. I spent my entire life hating a man I thought abandoned the responsibility that was attached to me. But the truth was, my mother didn't know who he was. There was no traumatic story of stranger danger. Or a naive young woman being exploited for the benefit of someone else. The truth was, my mother made a decision and lived with it for the rest of her life. Or shall I say, I lived with it for the rest of my life. And now she was sitting next to my girlfriend and the mother of my children, and I could feel her tears too.

The judge rambled, and I grew impatient. Just get with it! I wanted to yell out. When I was arrested there was this arrogance in my spirit. I thought I had outsmarted the system. The system that was designed to claim my life, whether dead or alive. I thought I was playing chess not checkers. I knew I would walk out of the holding facility with a clean record and a case dismissed read next to my name. But once I was returned to Norfolk, my attorney presented all the evidence against me: all the times I traveled from Norfolk to Mexico and back. I then learned my arrest at that rest stop was no wrong place at the wrong time. I then learned I was playing checkers and they were playing chess. Checkmate. So I took a deal. Is it really a deal, though? My family is behind me, and their tears are falling down my cheek. What type of deal is that? As if my life is a faded trend taking space on a store's shelf. The judge pointed out my clean record.

Never having a speeding ticket, was his exact words.

Yet I'm sitting before him for transporting narcotics across multiple state lines. Rather have had that speeding ticket. He acknowledges my being an honor roll student and a good employee during my time as a delivery driver for UPS. He mentioned my family and my hardworking mother. He even mentioned Denver and read a letter she wrote him, pleading he allows me to be home in time to see our kids graduate from elementary school. I started to feel hopeful. I started to believe that maybe I was catching a deal, like a repossessed Mercedes at an auction.

Then he said, The following sentence is imposed. He read each offense from my indictment as if he were a waiter confirming my food order, then he said, The defendant will serve four hundred and twenty months. Now it was my tears that I felt down my cheek. Four hundred and twenty months is thirty-five years. Here I am, twenty-five years old and just lost thirty-five years of my life.

I returned to the holding facility and tried to keep from crying. The few men I made friends with tried to relate to me. They shared how they felt on their sentencing day. It was as if they were sharing stories of how they'd lost their virginity. I tried to appear uninterested. I tried to remain calm. I tried to appear unbothered. Yet the truth was my mind was racing like an Olympian. I thought of Denver, our sons, and then my mother. I even thought to the father who knew nothing of my existence. How would he feel knowing the man with half his biological composition will be rotting away in a federal prison for the next thirty-five years? I thought to my brother Rico and despite his undiagnosed learning disability, he still managed to stay on the right side of the law and out of prison.

I thought of Rico's children—all five of them and their mothers. Then I became angry. I became angry with my family. I shifted my attention from my fate to my family. I kept a relationship with my brother's children even the one's with difficult mothers. I treated my sister's four children as if they were my own kids. Only to learn that while I was fighting my case and Denver was preparing her body to bring our children into this world, my siblings were ghost.

Who came to the hospital with you? I remember asking her during our phone conversation.

My mom and Porcha of course. My boss came and the other designers in the office. They gave the boys really nice stuff babe.

From my family, I meant, baby.

Oh well, your mother said she would drop a gift off at my mom's house. She couldn't get off work.

Rico, Rogernique, or Romell come?

No.

I thought back to that conversation. I was mad—mad that my family helped me spend the money I made from being a delivery driver. And the one person I kept in the dark about my constant road trips was the only person to stand by my side. I was angry. Denver did not deserve any of this. Our children did not deserve any of this. I thought back to the father I never knew. I wondered if he knew I was here would he come running. I wondered if he wanted to be a father, if he had other kids, and if those siblings would support and protect Denver and our sons in my absence. Then I thought back to my mother. Guilt invaded my body as I felt bad for being angry with her. I tried to give her credit. I tried to praise her for keeping me and not depositing my developing cells into some undisclosed abortion clinic. Then I thought to my sister Rogernique. I thought back to each pregnancy she completed. How my mother was there from the moment she urinated on the plastic stick until it was time to cut the umbilical cord. I remembered my mother planning and hosting my sister's baby showers. Now my mother wouldn't even miss a day of work for the celebration of my children. Rico's children received the same treatment from my mother. But I reasoned that he had too many children with different women. It was hard to stay organized. Hard to maintain contact. Now I learned a hard lesson. Family or not, society treats kids as if they belong to the mother only. As if a father is an additional accessory sold separately. My anger grew daily, and by the time I was shipped off to serve my time in the glory state of Louisiana, I had decided Denver and my sons would not be serving this thirty-five-year sentence with me. I knew Denver would hold her breath for me. Hell, I would have suffocated myself for her. But she did not deserve to have to. She did not deserve to have to pay to have a five-minute conversation with me. She did not deserve to use her time off from work driving long hours to visit me. To have her hair inspected or treated like a prisoner herself just to allow her eyes to physically touch mine and a brief exchange of physical touch. A hug. She did not deserve to pay for my mistakes. And our children deserved a real father—someone who could attend their honor roll lunches, teach them how to tie their shoes, someone to take them crabbing on the pier, and to teach them how to dribble a basketball. My black queen and black princes deserved better than what I could offer them. By the time our sons experienced their first birthdays, I told her to forget about me.

Tell the kids I died, were my exact words.

She argued and fought hard. She mailed me pictures. I returned them to her unopened. I put her on the block list. I could feel her tears every time the guards told her she could not visit me. It wasn't an easy decision to erase Denver and our sons from my life, but it was the only thing I had control over.

Denver

Four years later

My wedding day came much quicker than I expected. When Roman and I set the date, it felt like a century away, and now I was being pampered for the first time in my life. I was pregnant with my fourth child, and the first biological child Roman and I created together. I came with twins, and Roman came with a son who had no mother.

People often said, You and Roman are so lucky. Y'all don't have to deal with all that blended family drama.

But were we really lucky? My oldest son's father was decaying away in some federal prison, and Cody's mother just left. She literally dropped him off to us and left. Is that considered luck or misfortune? Will we ever have to tell our children about their factual biology? Does not having to co-parent and rotate birthday and holiday compensate for not knowing if or when to tell your children you aren't their biological mother or father? Do you tell them when they go off to kindergarten? How about the sixth grade? No, it's the day they graduate from high school. Or do you wait for a drunk and angry family member to blurt it out at the Thanksgiving table? Therefore, Roman and I decided we would never tell them. The truth can't hurt them if they never know it to be the truth. This is our family, and today is the day I will officially become Denver Marie Foster.

Roman's mother was my boss. It's funny because when I was dating Rogelle, the twin's biological father, he would say, Your boss in a coon. He hated her. He would tear her apart every chance he could. He would say She sold her soul, man. Her daughter fucked her way through all my homies. Her son always fallen over drunk somewhere, and she has the audacity to look down on me.

She just wished you would speak properly and not smell of marijuana when you come to visit me in the office, I would combat.

It's funny because they say the truth is always hidden in plain sight. I never questioned Rogelle on his choice of friends. I never inquired why all his friends sold drugs and ran through money like a doctor with latex gloves. I never asked how he afforded the condo we lived in while only working part-time with UPS. But I did question why he hated Tammy so much.

She hired you so you could be the next big designer but reduced you to answering the phone and making her doctor's appointments. She a coon.

I hated to hear him call her that. It wasn't easy working for Tammy. Tammy never gave me a hard time when I had to miss work for my sons. She gifted me designer bags and shoes to show her appreciation for me often. There was never an issue with my paychecks, and not to mention, she helped my time as a single mother not become statistical. She cared for my sons in ways Rogelle's family never attempted to. Yet I'm sure he still hates her. Perhaps he saw into the future and knew she would be the grandmother to his children. I mourned the lengthy sentence Rogelle received. My heart ached watching them escort him from the court room. Then I grieved him disconnecting from us, and by time Roman and I started dating, I hated Rogelle. I cursed the day he was born and felt the same for his family. I was doing the heavy lifting here. The day-to-day obligations for our sons and he decides to disconnect from us? How hard would it have been to receive pictures and accept our telephone calls? Now today, I am marrying the man I love. So why am I thinking of Rogelle? It was as if I wanted him to feel my happiness. I felt he took his fate out on me, and for a moment, I carried that hurt, toted it around as if it were hand lotion in my purse. I drowned myself in self-pity and negative emotions. I blamed everyone while my hate for Rogelle and his family increased daily. Simple tasks such as grocery