It had been a while since I needed to escape.
Santa Ana winds roared in my windows. Disc one of R. Kelly’s double CD rocked hard on my sound system. The CD lasted seventy-one minutes, long enough to give me the hard beats I needed on my sojourn to sanity.
Jake lived in the Playa Pacific town houses, a stone’s throw from the never-ending traffic on the longest road in the state, Sepulveda Boulevard. The din of this area was too much for my liking. But I guess none of that constant rambunctious activity really mattered to Jake, because it matched his personality. Plus he was hardly ever at home. My catching him at home tonight was nothing but luck.
Pamela was walking around in a housecoat and slippers, moving from room to room like she lived there. She was brown-skinned; hair short, curly, and dyed the color of gold. Graceful neck, lissome torso, cool demeanor. Not beautiful, cute. Clever eyes that said every man in her life had underestimated her.
Pamela didn’t smile, hardly said two words before she went into the bedroom and closed the door. The place smelled like baked fish. The scent of a fresh sweet potato pie was floating in the air too. Strawberry incense was slowly burning. Already, my sense of smell was overloaded.
I sat on the cream leather sofa, next to the shelves filled with jazz statuettes, and told Jake what had happened between me and Dawn. He still had on his fireman’s blue and was on the love seat, facing a tri-matted photo of Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald singing together somewhere back in time.
He stopped rubbing his fingers over his thick goatee, waved my words down, cut off my rampage. “I love you, and you my boy, but I’ve got to take her side on this one.
And you know that’s a stretch for me, because I know Dawn hates me.”
“Can’t deny that.”
“How are you just gonna give up being a Perry Mason to write a stupid book? You ain’t even had a book-writing class.”
“It’s called a leap of faith.”
“You need to leap your ass toward some sense.”
“You make it sound like I’ve lost my mind.”
“You might need psychological evaluation.”
“Stephan’s read my work. He loved it.”
“Stephan ain’t shit,” Jake said. “He let Toyomi punk him. Man, I’d’ve had my foot so far up her ass, she’d still be out there painting my door right now. Both her and Shar.”
“They’d been together a long time.”
“That was the problem. He should’ve hit that and quit that a long time ago. Her possessive and jealous ass.”
“Think she was jealous and possessive without due cause?”
“You bust a nut, and before you can roll off and take a few Z’s, women try to turn your ass into a mutherfuckin’ ready teller.”
I told him, “I’m going to meet Tammy.”
Her rehearsal would be over in a few minutes. I was waiting for her to page me.
Jake went back to trailing his fingers up and down his goatee. First his face held contemplation, then he warned me, “Don’t get in this game. Don’t start lying. This is a game that’s hard to get out of.”
I let my wayward friend know, “Don’t worry. I’m just going to get a cup of cappuccino and chitchat. I’m not from the Wilt Chamberlain school of romance.”
He laughed. “Fuck you.”
“I’m not cut out for infidelity.”
“Let a woman tell it, every man is cut out for infidelity. And let me tell it, every woman is too.”
“Not the kid. I’m not into drama for the sake of drama. I’m an old-fashioned fool that thrives on one-on-one love.”
“You better write that corny shit in one of those books you call yourself writing.” He mocked, “One-on-one love?”
“Yep.”
“But you’re on the way to Hollywood in the middle of the night to see a bitch you met in a bar.”
I didn’t say anything about the pejorative remark. If he did it again, I might hit him in the mouth, but for now, I didn’t say anything.
He asked, “What’s the real deal with you and Tammy?”
I admitted, “I like her. That’s about all.”
“Love, like, lust,” Jake chuckled. “All of ‘em start with the same letter, so there’s not too much of a difference.”
I said, “Not to you.”
“At midnight, won’t be much of a difference to you either. Tell me you don’t want her to wrap her long yellow legs around your black neck and knock your boots from here to Tijuana.”
I couldn’t tell him that. “I’m not cut out for infidelity.”
“Nigga,
puh-lease.
And the pope is having a sunrise service with Larry Flynt and Farrakhan at the Hugh Hefner mansion.”
We laughed.
He peeped over his shoulder, then said, “You know what I like about Pamela?”
“She puts up with your idiocy.”
“Besides that.”
“Nope, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
He shifted, got serious. “Let me tell you about Charlotte first. I love her. And I’m gonna get around to marrying her. She understands sex, the basic act and nothing extreme. Two positions of pleasure, and she likes to do both of those in the bed all the damn time. At least that’s all she shows me.”
“Uh-huh.”
He massaged his face. “But I wonder if she understands sensuality.”
“What you mean?”
“I mean, sensuality. What I get every few nights, after she’s showered and scrubbed her face for what seems like an hour, is a woman in a beat-up T-shirt and worn-out underwear. Usually a pair of boxer-style shorts. Hair pinned up. Never a sister in some satin here, some silk there, some honey dust sprinkled here, some soft lights and jazz there. I guess loving me ain’t the first thing on her mind. I guess I could
tell
her how to be a woman, how to
become one of the most powerful creatures on this planet, ask her to put this on, to dab some perfume there, but my desires are, well, what I’m saying is that I need a woman who knows the art of being a woman, not somebody who needs to be taught how to paint by numbers. And getting her to the point of orgasm ain’t a simple thing to do. Making her cum is about as easy as trying to catch a baby grand piano with a baseball glove.”
All I could say was, “Wow.”
“So, getting a ten-minute quickie ain’t happening. It’s all or none. After working four days in a row, twenty-four-seven, some nights I don’t feel like giving my all.”
“So you’d rather be with Pamela.”
“Hell, no. Pamela is pinch-hitting. But still I’m crazy about her. What a woman does in bed makes a man feel alive.”
“But it can’t help him survive when the moans have died and the sweat between the sheets have dried.”
“Put that shit in a book.”
“I might.”
“True, what you said.” He sighed. “But as soon as a brother busts a nut, and that good feeling fades, all the other stuff comes back home. All the dreams come back.”
I didn’t say anything. He was back on those dreams again.
Jake said, “My advice to you is plain and simple. If you gonna keep kicking it with Tammy, you know what you have to do.”
I wanted to know, “What do I
have
to do?”
“Hit it and quit. Don’t get comfortable, and don’t loiter in the pussy. Loitering has gotten many a brother in trouble.”
“So, you loitering with Pamela or Charlotte?”
“Charlotte’s my woman. You know that. When it comes down to it, everybody else is gonna have to hit the road. Ain’t nobody better than Charlotte. That’s where my heart is at.” He had sincere words and a half smile. “But when a man ain’t got no options, he has to put up with all kinds of shit to get laid. Charlotte’ll put a nigga on a two-week dry spell.”
I asked, “And Pamela? What about her?”
“She knows how to make a man feel like a man. She
cooks, cleans up when she comes over, can find some of Charlotte’s shit laying around and she won’t sweat me over it. She’s not as smart as Charlotte, won’t ever have as much money because she thinks that her charge cards are free money.”
I chuckled. “Free money?”
“The way Pamela can wreck a charge card, if I married somebody like her I’d be bankrupt in six months. But she has her pluses.”
“She’s a concubine.”
He rubbed his goatee again, blinked like he was waking up, then asked, “What you mean, she’s a damn porcupine?”
“Concubine, not porcupine.”
“If that means what I think it means, I’m kicking your ass.”
We laughed. His chortle told me he was offended; mine told him I didn’t give a damn.
He lowered his voice, leaned in close. “I met this freak yesterday. Hispanic girl. Looks like Jennifer Lopez. Serious booty, tits for days. She was rolling out the lot by HomeBase, up at Slauson and Fairfax, right by the fire station.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She had just got her nails done at that Chinese manicure place, Mantrap. And man, she’s fine. Hair down to her butt. She invited me to this party down in Orange County this weekend.”
I said, “She must be into brothers.”
“And it ain’t even Black History Month.”
We laughed.
He told me, “I mean, she pulled up in a brand-new convertible Jaguar, was all up in my face. Man, that fireman’s uniform pulls more honeys than a little bit. She’s called me three times today, wanted to make sure I was coming to the party.”
I said, “Damn. Just like that?”
“Just like that. Miss Taco Bell has a thing for brothers.”
I guess the real reason I came to see Jake was because I needed that kind of vile validation. Some wicked words to go with my blasphemous thoughts.
He confessed, “Man, I’m gonna miss all of this when I marry Charlotte. Vicki. Yolanda. Toni. Paulette. What’s-her-face
I met at Duet’s in Westwood. What’s-her-face I was with last night. All of ‘em gonna have to get the boot.”
“What about Pamela?”
“She’s down for whatever. Knowing her, she’ll be at my wedding throwing rice. Might even let her pop up on the honeymoon.”
When I first got there, I had wanted to tell him what Dawn had accused me of. Pamela was floating around his space, so I didn’t bring up the subject. Now I did. I ran that incident by him, told him what I did, and what she said I did, just to see if I was living in the right or existing in the wrong.
He responded, “Dawn’s tripping. Every other woman would’ve loved that shit. A man can’t rape his wife. That’s bullshit.”
“A man can, but I didn’t.”
“You know what I meant. Damn. You going back home tonight?”
My body was heavy, like I was made of cement. Eyes burned a little. I was getting sleepy. Part of me wanted to go home; another part needed to see Tammy, find out if there was some peace in the valley for me. To tell the truth, I felt like a rooster that didn’t know which way to go, into the barn where I belonged, or back out into the yard with all the chickens.
He asked, “Want something to drink?”
“Water. Mouth is dry.”
He yelled, “Pamela, get my homey a glass of water, please.”
She did what he asked without hesitation or question. Then she went back across the room, moved like a cat, and went into the bathroom.
She came right back out and softly said, “Jake?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“Our bath water is ready.”
“Okay. I’ll get with you in a minute.”
“Want me to get the massager and hook up your back?”
“I’ll be there in a minute. Keep it hot for me.”
She sashayed away.
I felt sorry for that woman of low expectation. Felt sorry for Charlotte.
Jake was sitting underneath a photo of his parents that
took up most of that wall. In the picture they were about Jake’s age. Scrapbooks underneath his iron coffee table held page after page of his parents’ pictures. I glanced at the monogamous love in the photo on the wall and felt pity for Jake.
Five minutes later, Jake was heading toward the steam that was waiting in his bathroom, toward Pamela, and I was driving up Slauson, passing by a sky-high billboard that depicted L.A. Laker Kobe Byrant flying in the air, his image mutating and implying that he was the next Michael Jordan.
Get real.
My radio was on 103.9. Al Green was singing about love and happiness. In my mind I changed the tune to loathe and unhappiness. Makes you wanna do wrong, makes you forget what’s right.
We sat outside in a tiled courtyard at the Atomic Café, across from Le Croissant Club. Atomic is a small, trendy digital Internet bistro that serves gourmet coffee and fattening desserts until the bewitching hour. Mike Camacho and Friends were playing jazz. People were out and about, but we had a wrought iron table in the corner of the courtyard to ourselves.
We were a few feet from Hollywood Boulevard, where homeless people slept in open doorways, used newspapers as their bed sheets and piss-smelling concrete as their pillows.
Hip-hugging jeans with wide legs, a beige T-shirt for “
Harriet’s Return
starring Debbie Allen.” Old, oversized, and faded Levi jacket. Light brown hair pulled back into a bun. A beige and brown Negro League baseball cap. That’s what Tammy had on.
I sipped my tea, but staring at Tammy made me feel like I was on whiskey and cocaine. I felt guilty. Even if I never saw Tammy again, I’d feel guilty for the rest of my life.
She stopped singing in French, said, “You look sleepy.”
“Getting there.”
“It’s after midnight. You sure you’re going to be able to drive home without rolling off the 10 into a ditch?”
“Don’t have a choice.”
“Everyone has a choice.”
I paused and gazed at her. “That they do.”
She adjusted her jacket. “So, what did you think?”
I opened my attaché case and handed her the play she’d given me.
“It’s damn good. You tackled the domestic-violence thing very well. Your characters, especially the wild and selfish sisters of the protagonist, were both tragic and funny.”
She said, “Comedy is tragedy with a punch line.”
“Your comedy keeps the story from being too heavy.”
“It wasn’t a hodgepodge?”
“A what?”
“Was too much going on at the same time?”
“Not at all.”
She sipped. I watched the way her lips slowly parted, how I caught a glimpse of her tongue, the way she swallowed.
I nodded. “Your writing is very sensual.”