I headed for the shower.
Vince’s silk boxers were on the bathroom floor, bundled next to the black satin pajamas I never had the chance to slip on last night. A hurricane of pleasure had come through there.
That was only a few hours ago.
And this morning another man was clogging up my mind.
I had been tracked down like I was a runaway slave.
I stood under the hot water, no candle, no music, soaped my sleep-deprived body down, wanted Vince to come back and save me from these uninvited feelings. Needed him to crawl inside me, fill me with sweet pain, and steal my mind away from New York once again.
5
Vince
I was heading south on the 405 freeway, zooming underneath the DC-10s, 747s, and FedEx planes coming into three runways at LAX, passing the HerbaLife building, and the strip of mega-hotels, car dealerships, and fast-food joints on Century Boulevard.
I’d left Dana’s ten minutes ago, was doing at least seventy-five, but most of the cars, SUVs, and minivans were passing me like I was driving a Pinto with three tires.
Whenever I was troubled, Womack was the man I called. So, that’s what I did. Took out my c-phone and dialed his number.
He said, “Fool, why ain’t you been by here? Thought you were gonna help me sell all these doggone T-shirts I had made up?”
“Been working overtime in case the layoffs come down again.”
“Ain’t that much overtime in the world.”
“Been spending time with Dana too.”
“Aw, so it’s like that now, huh? Negro Black Man, you got family over here and you dumping us for a New York woman?”
“Drop ’em off at the crib. I’ll take a few to Boeing.”
He reminded me, “First of the month is coming up. You need to hit the strip. You know how peeps on your side of Crenshaw become shopaholics when they get those county checks.”
We laughed. My tone was light-hearted, but I didn’t feel that way. This morning I was a man standing in water up to his chin, waiting for his fears to rise two more feet and drown him.
Womack has been my best friend since I was my daddy’s sperm searching for my momma’s egg. His dad, Harmonica, and my dad used to work at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard together, then hang out on Central Avenue, the West Coast version of Harlem, living in the gin and blues until way after midnight. Our mothers both sang in the same choir, both did hair, Momma out of our kitchen, Womack’s mom out of theirs. Everybody worked hard. Too hard.
In the background, Womack’s baby girl, Ramona, was crying. His three little boys—Louie, Mark, and Jordan—were rumbling. Their television was on an early morning kiddie show.
Rosa Lee picked up an extension, heard my voice. “I told everybody you almost got busted when big-mouth and ignorant what’s-her-face showed up asking about Malaika.”
The tall sister that we’d run into at church yesterday, she was at my wedding. Was at my ex-wife’s baby shower too.
She said sternly, “Don’t put me in the middle of your mess.”
“See, I should’ve married you, Rosa Lee.”
“Hey, hey,” Womack cut in. “Don’t flirt with my wife.”
She retorted, “Vince, if you don’t mind a woman with a few miles on her and a ready-made family, we’ll move into your apartment with you by the time the sun goes down.”
“Hey, hey,” Womack snapped. “Don’t flirt with my best friend.”
Rosa Lee had to get ready for work. She was running behind. She told Womack to change the baby’s diaper because she had deposited a stinky load of Colonel Mustard in her Huggie.
He snapped back at her, “Why can’t you do it?”
“Can’t you see I’m trying to get out of here?”
A few more spicy things were said.
Womack was my best friend. I’d lie for him. Go to jail for him. Die for him. If he died before me, I’d spend the rest of my days taking care of his children. I’d do that for him, and I know he’d take care of my little girl if anything happened to me.
But when him and Rosa Lee had words, I backed away.
Rosa Lee hung up.
I told Womack, “It’s no biggie. I’ll hit you back.”
“Nah,” he said. “I can handle it. Just have to give her a hard time so she won’t forget who’s in charge over here.”
He was heading toward the baby. I knew because the crying was getting louder. Hearing his daughter cry reminded me why I had called.
I told him, “I had a dream last night.”
“Martin Luther King Jr. had one first.”
“Why you always got to be such a smart-ass?”
“Because you’re a dumb donkey.”
Since he didn’t curse me back, that meant his boys were in earshot. Either that or he thought they might hear him through the monitors. When you have kids, monitors are in every room. I know that for a fact.
“Hold on for a quick sec,” he said.
I was passing the Carson Mall, leaving the 405 and merging with the 110 north, riding with about a million cars. Riding and thinking about a lot of things. About how after we spent two years at El Camino Community College, Womack got Rosa Lee pregnant, found a gig at UPS, jumped the broom, and tossed his community college books to the side. I went on to Cal State Long Beach, did a year, couldn’t afford the tuition, had to lay off a year. At least that had been my plan. I met Malaika. She was hot to trot, ready to party, and pregnant six months later. We married a month after the rabbit died, divorced two years after that.
Falling for a fine woman had changed my master plan.
An anxious dick, misplaced romance, and some misguided sperm have changed many a man’s plans. Made him wake up every day wishing he could turn back the hands of time. Which proved that there’s no such thing as free sex, only delayed payments.
As I was driving, surrounded by a million cars and still feeling all alone, I thought about the things that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell Dana. If I told her part, she’d want the whole story.
I’d found out Malaika was seeing her high school sweetheart. While I was slaving from six p.m. to two a.m., making that third-shift differential at Boeing, she was making booty calls in the desert.
Only she didn’t know I had her followed.
Malaika had left my little girl in San Bernardino at her mom’s crib. Lied and said she was going to party at Pinky’s with her sister, Regina, but had gone on a rendezvous out in Moreno Valley. On that rainy night I went right up to that door. Banged like thunder. Called her name like I was sounding Gabriel’s horn. She came out. Trembling. Shocked. Tried to talk. But I couldn’t hear a word she said because I was so busy cursing her down for leaving our child while she ran the streets. Besides, it was hard for her to get the words out with my hands clamped around her throat tighter than an Indian necklace.
He jumped in. Big mistake. It was between me, my wife, and God, but he jumped in like he was the hero in an action movie.
I kicked his ass like it was the opening day of ass-kicking season. And when the smoke cleared, I unrolled my fists, went and got my child, took her over to Womack’s crib. Went there because I was scared the police might come knocking. Not one of my proudest moments. My roughest hour. In my heart, that’s my black beast. That personal violation felt like a slow death. My grief was so overwhelming it was oppressive. Almost got swallowed up by a wave of loneliness. Couldn’t reach out to nobody. Nobody but Womack.
He came back on the line: “Man, didn’t mean to leave you hanging, but that girl kept squirting mustard while I was changing her. I went through three doggone diapers.”
He got settled and I told him about the dream that lasted all night. Seemed too real. It had done a real number on me.
In my dream, I was flying. Feeling good.
He said, “Power. Flying means you have power. Then what?”
I went on. Told him I had glided through a cloud shaped like a smile, then over a snowcapped mountain. Then somebody was pulling my pants, tapping on my leg. Felt like small hands, soft fingers. I looked back and Kwanzaa was flying right behind me.
My child had returned.
Her hair was in two ponytails. She was wearing a blue Kente dress, white tights, and patent-leather shoes. I took her tiny hand and pulled her softness up to me. Her face smelled like sweet breast milk. She kissed my cheek, smiled under her eager eyes. Then we flew side by side and laughed a million times.
A lot happened, words, we sang songs.
The sun started to set, went down too fast. With the darkness came coldness, and Kwanzaa started to fall. She fell and I forgot how to fly. My child screamed that I had said I would always protect her.
A huge shadow circled me. Malaika’s husband. He didn’t have a face, but I knew it was Drake. He flew by and caught my child. He slowed and held my baby steady while I continued to plunge.
This morning I woke up, heart beating too fast, shivering, sweating. I had expected Dana to be awake, lurking in the shadows, watching me and knowing, her cold eyes piercing at me through the darkness. But she wasn’t.
Her phone rang. She didn’t move at all. Sound asleep. Warm. Looking innocent. I watched her for a while.
I had wanted to whisper good-bye to that pretty sleepyhead, make sure she was tucked in tight, tell her I loved her and to take care of herself, sell those houses and become a big-time real estate agent, tell her all of that while she slept, then pack up my lie and leave forever. Hope that by the new spring she would forget about me. And maybe by the time old man winter rolled around again, I’d’ve gotten over her.
Womack said, “Don’t let that worm dig too deep.”
We said a few more things, made plans to get together over the weekend for a few minutes, if he had minutes to spare. He’s married with four kids, so if he found a few minutes that would be a miracle.
He told me that he’d ride over to my side of Crenshaw and leave a box of T-shirts on my front porch sometime today.
Womack said, “Lauryn Hill or Jada Pinkett?”
I said, “Lauryn Hill till the cows come home.”
“You a fool.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Idiot, how could you pass up Jada Pinkett?”
“How could you pass up Lauryn Hill?”
He had me where I needed to be, living inside of friendship and laughter. When we hung up, my laughter faded, but the memories were still here.
I wished I was younger. Wished it was back when KDAY was on the air playing the hell out of NWA. Back when we cruised Crenshaw on Sundays. And Carolina West was the place to be, party from sundown on Saturday until nine on a Sunday morning.
That was way back then. Before Malaika. Back when Womack had planned on being an attorney and I was going to be an engineer and come up with something to knock IBM out of the market and help my buddy rule the free world. And his wife, before the unplanned pregnancy, she was heading down the road of medicine; that brilliant woman was going to be a doctor.
The choices we made diverted us all to another life.
Not bad. Just different. Unexpected.
I made it into Boeing, parked in the football field-size parking lot that faced the 91 freeway, grabbed my sacked lunch, and raced across the blacktop through the security gate. Smiled and laughed and ran with the rest of the fellows who were rushing to the nearest time clock so we could punch in before our corporate curfew, hurrying to work another day at the plantation.
I clocked in, stopped by the ARA machine long enough to grab a cup of flavorless coffee, then hoofed it into Building 270 with the rest of the crew. The white-collar people were in their groups. The real workers were in theirs.
I passed a pay phone near the bathrooms, paused, decided to try and set things right at both ends of my life.
The first call went to Dana. Told her I loved her, hoped she had a great day, that I wanted to get together with her and talk.
Then I called my child’s grandmother’s house. Hadn’t dialed San Bernardino in about six months. Since the breakup, conversations with her had been brief, some a little tart to the taste, and no matter how much I asked, she never offered any help in contacting my child. Her voice always held hostility when I called. Ever since that night, every one in that family has held the same disdain.
Three tears in a bucket. I needed to get a direct international number to Malaika. No matter what they thought, I had to put my foot down, let them know I’d had enough of the bullshit.
I steeled myself, became firm, determined, and called.
The phone had been temporarily disconnected.
That Saturday was the first of the month. Everybody had started hawking the avenue named after George H. Crenshaw with the rising of the sun. In ninety-degree heat I was peddling designer T-shirts, stayed dog-eat-dog with Asians hawking video and cassette tapes, Mexican ladies offering cotton socks, and ashy-elbowed Iranians auctioning off quadruple-X-rated African American porno tapes.
I hit the crowded Crenshaw Car Wash, sold a few, went by three Nix Check Cashing places, Phillip’s BBQ, the Arco next to the 98 Cents store, dropped in Magic Shears and sold a couple while a brother named Silk trimmed my hair and shaped up my beard for me. Everybody liked FUBU T-shirts. I did the best when I hit the barber and beauty and braid and weave and manicure shops. There are more vanity shops on one block of this strip than there are craters in the moon.
I went home, showered, changed into my 501s and a dark blue T-shirt, and drove over to Womack’s duplex. His nest was in Old Ladera, three miles from my rambunctious part of town. Land that used to be all Armenian and white around twenty years ago, but now it was mostly African American with plenty of white people in the mix. Single- and two-story duplexes, Spanish-style homes, eucalyptus trees, and Neighborhood Watch signs on every pole.
Most people judge how safe an area was by the number of wrought-iron bars on the window. Womack didn’t have any on his champagne-colored building, and neither did his neighbors.