“How many you got?” Nina asked Dutch.
“Huh?” he asked, not thinking about books.
“Is you deaf or something?” she questioned, now pretending to be speaking to a deaf mute, making sign language and talking
slowly to him as if he were deaf. “How… many… do… you… have?”
The fat man’s eyes shot over at Dutch.
Is this bitch crazy? Don’t she know who the fuck she clownin’? She must not know this nigga will kill us all,
he kept thinking to himself.
“Oh, damn, my fault. I got two,” Dutch said, still not taking his eyes, or his smile, off her.
“Give us eight,” said Nina turning to the fat man. He looked at her and wrote down an eight for them and a five for himself
and his partner. The lead was on the fat man’s partner, who played a four of hearts. Dutch followed suit with a ten, the fat
man played a queen, and Nina took the book with an ace.
She then brought hearts back to the board and Dutch won the book with his king. He then played a low diamond to the board.
“Fuck is this dumb muhfucka doin’?” Nina said, almost having a fit. She rumbled under her breath loud enough to be heard.
Just my damn luck, hafta play this nigga and a crazy bitch! She gonna get us both shot the fuck up,
the fat man thought as he looked up, hoping that Dutch didn’t hear what the crazy girl said.
The hand played out and Dutch and Nina ended up being set with seven.
“Didn’t you see me play back hearts? I thought you said you could play?” she huffed at him while she shuffled the cards.
“My fault,” Dutch replied in a monotone.
“Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled, and rolled her eyes at him.
The game played out and Nina ended up losing. The fat man’s partner collected the money as the fat man watched Dutch. Dutch
watched Nina get up from the table but didn’t say a word.
“How much she lose?” Dutch questioned the fat man.
There it is, now the nigga gonna take my shit,
the fat guy thought, but softly responded, “Five hundred.”
To his surprise and relief, Dutch got up and walked away in Nina’s direction and the fat man’s asshole loosened.
Nina was furious as she scanned the crowd for her partner. She finally spotted her.
“Tamika! Tamika!” she shouted, “You ain’t shit!”
Tamika turned around, quite tipsy, to see her best friend staring at her. She burst out in laughter.
“You look so funny when you mad,” she said as she threw her hand on Nina’s shoulder.
“Get off me, man. I lost my fuckin’ money. Fuckin’ wit’ you, I got stuck playin’ wit’ some dumb motherfucker and you over
here tryin’ to trick niggas.”
“Oh, sour puss! Live a little, bitch, you need to mingle, Ms. Single.”
“Um, unlike you, I don’t work on my back. I gotta get up in the mornin’,” Nina said with a flaccid smile.
“Oh, fuck you, Nina,” said her friend with a smile. “Let me tell Derrick I’m leaving. I’ll meet you outside, okay, shmuckums?”
she said, pinching Nina’s cheek.
“You better bring your drunk ass on, nigga, before you be left out here, and you giving me my two-hundred and fifty dollars
back off that five I lost,” she said as Tamika agreed with her.
Dutch searched the crowd and spotted Nina heading out the door. He bumped into people in the crowded after-hours spot as he
rushed to her.
“Nina!” he called out. She turned around to see who was calling.
When she saw Dutch, she sucked her teeth, pursed her lips, and kept on walking.
“It’s like that?” Dutch asked, not believing she could be that rude.
“Hell, yeah! Just like that, nigga, make me lose my money,” she said over her shoulder.
“I’m sayin’, I’m trying to give you something, if you’d just stop,” he said, really hoping she would.
Nina slowed her stroll, then spun around on her stilettoes and folded her arms across her chest, “What?”
“A girl will listen if she thinks you got something for her?” he asked, hoping her character wasn’t like that at all. “You
left this,” he said, holding five hundred-dollar bills.
She looked at the money in his hand. “And what’s that suppose to be?”
“Your money. That’s how much you bet, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, but that ain’t my five hundred dollars, ’cause I lost my five hundred dollars fuckin’ around wit’ you. You made sure
I lost.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m givin’ you this. I sorta lied to you when I said I knew how to play,” Dutch admitted.
“Noaa, ya think? I woulda never guessed. Good-bye.”
Nina turned and walked away. She spotted Tamika.
“Dutch?” Tamika questioned. She was looking at the jackpot, and couldn’t believe it. “Hi, Dutch,” Tamika sang to him.
Dutch recognized the girl as someone Craze ran through, or maybe it was Zoom he had seen with the broad. He nodded in response,
but kept his attention on Nina.
“Okay, at least let me take you to a late dinner,” Dutch offered.
“No.”
“Call it an early breakfast then.”
“Was it the N or the O, that you didn’t get?” Nina questioned smartly, although her attitude didn’t show it. She liked his
determination and the fact that he came clean and was truthful about the spade game. She also liked that he had offered to
repay her loss.
“Well, can I—” Dutch stammered before Nina cut him off.
“Good night,” she said sternly, looking in his baby browns, honestly wishing she hadn’t said it. Yet she turned and walked
away.
Tamika was beside herself.
The girl is crazy! I knew she needed help, but damn!
Tamika thought after witnessing her best friend turn down the most desirable and wanted man in town.
“Girl, do you know who that was? Dutch!”
“And I’m ’posed to get naked right there and start fuckin’ the nigga or something?”
“Shit, bitch, if you knew what the fuck I know, you’d be doin’ something,” Tamika said, knowing Nina knew better.
“Girl, you need counseling,” joked Nina as she unlocked the car door.
“No, you do. I got a ride. My Puerto Rican friend wants to go to breakfast,” Tamika said, grinning from ear to ear. “So I
wrote down his tag number. Give it to the police, if you never hear from me again,” she said seriously as she passed a piece
of paper with the stranger’s tag number written on it.
“Yeah, bitch, counseling,” hollered Nina as she waved good night with the piece of paper in her hand.
Four days later, it was pouring rain. Nina’s car broke down on her way to work, so she was forced to take a cab home. She
hated Newark cabs and disliked the trip all the way home to Elizabeth. But she especially hated taking the bus. Nina stood
on her feet all day at the bank dealing with rude, dumb, slow, deaf, and crazy people. After work, she didn’t have the tolerance
for a crowded, stuffy, smelly bus ride. If it weren’t for her living expenses, she would have spent every day doing what she
enjoyed most: sleeping.
After eating Chinese food leftovers, she took a relaxing, long, hot bubble bath. Sleeping was exactly what she intended to
do. She hit the remote to the stereo system and her speakers filled her small apartment with Nina Simone, whom her mother
had named her after.
The answering machine blinked with messages, but she didn’t want to hear them. There would possibly be a call from a bill
collector and probably a call from Tamika bragging about something. A man with jewels and money or something somebody had
bought her. Maybe there would be a message from her mother, asking her usual questions. And she especially did not want to
hear her ex-boyfriend’s sorry attempts to resume the relationship, which had been over for more than a month and a half.
All of a sudden, the phone rang, disrupting Nina Simone’s melody and Nina’s train of thought.
“Go away,” she said to the ringing phone.
She took another bite of her chicken lo mein and finally answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Nina?” asked an unfamiliar man’s voice.
“Depends on who wants to know,” she said, truly curious about who it could be.
The voice laughed smoothly and she connected it to a smile she couldn’t forget…
Dutch.
“May I ask how you got this number?”
“Your friend, Tamika.”
“And may I ask if I didn’t give it to you, what made you think I wanted you to have it?”
“Women are funny like that. They say yes when they mean no and say no when they mean yes,” Dutch philosophized.
“Oh, really? That’s the same bullshit that got Mike Tyson’s ass all fucked up,” she quipped.
“Exactly, if that broad did say no, she meant yes,” said Dutch, on his man Mike’s side. “So, um, is that Nina Simone I hear
playing?”
“It’s Nina,” she confirmed, before adding, “Listen… Dutch, is it?”
“Bernard James, but don’t let that out,” he said, smiling to himself, having waited days to hear her voice again.
“How’d you get a name like Dutch, anyway?” She digressed, out of curiosity, from what she had intended to say.
“Maybe I’ll tell you tonight over dinner.”
“Listen, Bernard, you seem like… like a cool cat to get to know. You know, you are real handsome and to be honest, I dig your
style, but it’s just… that… I don’t know. I just got out of this corny relationship and well… it’s the timing,” she fought
for the words, trying to be polite and not state the real reason.
“Okay, then, I’ll call you tomorrow and you just think about what you want to say,” said Dutch, needing to dial her phone
tomorrow.
“No, really, I’m serious, Dutch,” she said, wishing she didn’t have to be.
“So is this good-bye?” Dutch questioned.
“I guess it is,” she said, hanging up the phone.
For the next few days, Dutch crossed her mind a million times. She liked him, his style, his look, his class, but like Dutch,
she too had rules, which also, like Dutch, she never broke. She didn’t deal with hustlers. It wasn’t a question of being a
saint or a sinner, but she did have her reasons.
Four years before, when her family lived in Pioneer Homes housing projects in Elizabeth, her younger brother had been killed.
He was only sixteen, two years younger than her at the time. He had been hustling for Bilal Petelow. Bilal had Elizabeth on
lock, when it came to the coke game.
She had been dating Lover J, one of Bilal’s main men. She and Lover J were in the parking lot arguing about a girl she heard
he was creeping with when she heard a series of gunshots. The shots seemed to last forever, but in reality ended after a few
seconds. Lover J was about to pull out of the lot when Nina heard her mother’s screams.
She jumped out of the car, ran into the courtyard, and saw her mother cradling her dead brother. Her mother’s nightgown was
drenched in his blood. The sight of her dead brother brought the reality of the game too close to home that night, and she
swore she would distance herself. She didn’t want to change the world or become a social worker. She just wanted to learn
from her brother’s mistake, respect his memory, and get on with her life.
But thoughts of Dutch were now making that difficult to do.
Two days later, Dutch was standing in her line at the bank, carrying a large burlap sack.
“Hello.” He smiled to her.
“Hi,” she said, standing on her tippy toes and peering over the counter.
“What’s in the b—” she began to ask before he cut her off.
“Never mind that. Have I sent you flowers?”
“No,” she said, confused.
“What about diamonds to your doorstep?”
“No, but,” she said with her usual disposition, attempting to shut him down.
“Will you let me finish? I been practicin’ this shit all day,” he said, as a blushing Nina smiled and let him continue.
“Thank you. Now, being that I coulda’ easily did those things and more, why do you think I haven’t?”
She just looked at him, not answering.
“Because! Some things are priceless, because no one will pay for them, while others are priceless, because no one can pay
for them,” he said, smiling like he knew something no one else did.
“And?” she asked, questioning relevancy.
“And all I’m asking is a chance to sit down with you. No barriers, no phones, no cards, and either you let me convince you
of my sincerity or let me get you out my system,” he said. He had been unable to eat or sleep over Nina.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then that’s what the bag is for. This gots to be at least two thousand dollars in pennies and I will be needing ’em wrapped
and counted.”
“Oh, an ultimatum? Well, did you consider before you drug that bag in here that you need an account with us for that service?”
“I just opened one.”
She smiled back before answering. “If I do sit down with you, it will be on my terms.”
“Okay,” answered Dutch. His heart lightened and he could breathe again.
“My time, my date, my choice, my way.”
“I personally wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She stood back and appraised the ebony prince before her.
Who are you and why do I care to know?
It was true, Dutch had Nina at hello. She just didn’t know it yet.
“How you?” Dutch asked as he leaned on her door frame four days later. He brought with him a fistful of flowers and his trademark
smile.
“I’m fine,” she said, letting him in.
She didn’t want to go out with a hustler only to meet the same fate her brother did, by association. Instead, she invited
him over for dinner. She prepared a simple chicken and vegetable casserole. It was nothing fancy, but delicious. The evening
was friendly, without too much familiarity, though they flirted with each other.
“Look at your smile. You can’t tell me the ladies don’t melt right out their panties.”
“Melt?” he said, questioning her choice of words, even though he knew she wasn’t wrong.
If rhythm could be judged like an Olympic event, Dutch would score a ten, a true dime. He was totally different from all the
men she had ever dated. They tried to buy her affections and to pressure her into giving them away. Dutch continued to surprise
her. Not only was he wealthy, he was articulate and intelligent, exuding confidence (which she loved), and was so, so fine.
“Quenching, like a tall glass of water on a hot sunny day,” her grandmother used to say.