Body hotter than a match, she moved her hips in intense circles. Dana finally slowed down, caught her wind, swallowed a mouth of her own saliva, wheezed a hundred times while she stared deep in my face.
That was how we remained. Our eyes on each other. Anger was still floating here, but it was different, diluted, mixed with shame and uncertainty. Her hands drifted across her sweaty breasts. Then she wiped my face, put her fingers in my mouth, let me taste the end of her wrath, rolled over next to me. Collapsed like she was drunk with power and put her head on my chest.
We lay there like we were bolted into the ground.
I tried to understand what had just happened to us.
No damn condom. I wondered if I had done something that couldn’t be forgiven. Wondered if I’d forgive her for what she had done. The smell from the fire, the ashes I saw, even with my eyes closed, was my answer.
The smoke detector stopped yelling.
Footsteps charged up the stairs. Our narrow hallway rumbled like we were having an earthquake.
Juanita was outside my door screaming. Radios squawked. Outside my window red and blue lights started flashing like crazy—rainbows chasing rainbows. Hard knocks rocked my door.
“LAPD. Open up.”
“Dana,” Juanita yelled. “Oh, my God, she’s not answering. Dana!
Dana!
”
“Ma’am, stand back, please.”
“But she was screaming that he was trying to kill—”
“Ma’am, stand back. Go back inside and close your door.”
There were a bunch of ’em. I could tell. There had to be more blue suits than had shown up for the Rodney King party.
My pants tangled at my ankles. Dana must’ve been in shock because she held me tighter, pinned me down. My shirt was ripped, buttons everywhere, half on, half off. Some furniture was knocked over, pillows were off the sofa, CDs scattered, a few things zigzag. The place was tossed like a jail cell. Dana’s panties were on the carpet by the front door. Ceiling to carpet, the room held the lovely aroma from what we’d done.
“LAPD. Open up.”
“I’m the landlord. I’ve got a key.”
The door swung open before we could get our bearings.
Police swarmed into my apartment like cockroaches drawn to spilled Kool-Aid. We were half-naked in a sea of blue suits and dark guns.
I wrenched my pants up, trembled head to toe, ached in between.
Dana took a sharp breath, quivered, struggled to get up. I helped her to her feet. Strange eyes were all over us. Juanita was in the background, yelling. Dana made a terrified sound and hid her naked body behind mine. Hid behind me and held my hand like I was her daddy.
18
Vince
Ten minutes passed.
Minutes that felt like years of nonstop sweating.
LAPD left the door wide open while they raged inside my life and pushed me to the side. They had even been kind enough to send a ghetto bird to fly over our building and let it shine its lights down brighter than Parliament’s flashlight. All of our lights were turned on. Outside, eight patrol car lights whirled and lit up the night like a fucking West Coast Mardi Gras celebration was going on in the center of my courtyard.
Seventeen policemen stood sentry in the middle of my life.
Dana had thrown on wrinkled jeans, a worn Harlem Book Fair T-Shirt. She was escorted to the other side of the room by two female officers in Kevlar vests who looked at me with disgust.
I was led out into the hall. Handcuffed. They said that embarrassment was for my own safety. My pride almost resisted that first step of dehumanization, but I remembered videos when brothers did contest the police, remembered how they were beat crippled and crazy.
What happened in the kitchen?
You left some papers on top of the gas stove and it ignited?
Would you like to come down to the station with us, ma’am?
Are those your panties by the door?
Did he force himself on you?
You can file a restraining order to give yourself time.
We can lock him up for at least forty-eight.
So you were making love and got carried away, ma’am.
The neighbors heard you scream.
Please don’t cover for him.
Brother, if that was my sister, you wouldn’t be standing here.
Voices surrounded me on the landing, right outside Naiomi and Juanita’s open door. Then they paraded me down to the courtyard, handcuffed, hands behind my back, made to stand in front of my whole neighborhood.
An officer of the goddamn law asked, “Why are you tense, Mr. Browne?”
I used my shoulder to wipe the sweat off my nose. “I’m black. You’re police. We have a history of conflict and misunderstanding.”
Juanita and Naiomi were in their bay window, their backs to me. An officer was with them. Juanita was as animated as a Disney movie, gesturing, pointing. Naiomi was calm, arms folded.
The police said that Juanita had dialed 911 and told them that Dana was screaming for her life. Described a murder in progress.
Seemed like an hour passed before they raised me from sitting on the curb and took the shackles off. I massaged my wrists, held my head high. The officer stared at me with disdain until I marched away from all the eyes. LAPD’s convoy left with disappointed faces.
I stood in the dark of my apartment, in the window.
Dana was on the floor, hands in her hair, her back to the wall.
“Unbelievable. Malaika calls here, first you let her talk down to you, then you stand in my face begging her, then you jump on me.”
“I jumped on you? We need to push rewind and see who popped who.”
She sat there with haunted eyes. She looked incurably sad.
I said, “Wake up and stop tripping.”
She chuckled. “Well, let me show you who is really tripping.”
Dana left, went into the closet, rifled through my personal stuff, came back with a videotape. Put it in the VCR. Grabbed the remote. Turned the television on. Pushed play. Me and Malaika came up on the screen.
Dana said, “Why do you have a tape of you and her fucking?”
I didn’t say a word. I was numb.
The tape played. Tortured me. Tortured Dana.
Me and Malaika were naked. Her short brown hair. My body was thinner, not much, but enough. And I wore a Bobby Brown-looking flat top fade. We were squirming on the bed that’s in my bedroom right now.
I cleared my throat.
She said, “It disgusts me.”
I went to the VCR.
She said, “Don’t stop it. Look at the end of the tape. Watch what happens. That tells all. You go get her a towel. See the blank look on her face? She forgot the tape was on. She loses that smile, sighs, shakes her head, and frowns up at the ceiling. She bites her bottom lip and stares off into space. With you was the last place she wanted to be.”
My body ached when I stooped. Pain from running. Pain from fighting. Pain from living. I pushed eject. Tore the tape to shreds.
She said, “How would you feel if I had a damn tape of me and somebody else having sex right up under your damn nose? How would you feel?”
The future walked in, very slowly. Thick lines were in her forehead, but she was a lot calmer. Like a burden had been lifted.
This had been turned around. Now I was the bad guy.
“You know that Malaika’s called. I know about your funky little tape. I feel so much better. So much better. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Dana, Malaika has nothing to do with what’s between me and you.”
“That’s bullshit,” she snapped back at me. “The money that you’ll have to dish out to Malaika’s household could make the difference between our children going to public and private school. A difference in the type of loan we could qualify for. Kind of car we can afford. The difference between us having nice family vacations, getting to visit other countries, places like Africa or France or Australia, or have to pack up government cheese sandwiches and catch a bus to Disneyland. Life’s expensive, and I want to be able to give my kids a decent life too.
“If she’s half the scrub you said she is, the more you make, the more they’ll take. And every time you make another dollar, she’ll be downtown at the courthouse asking for two. And if we have children, that’ll be just like taking the food and opportunity right out of my children’s mouth.”
Dana used the wall to help herself to her feet, followed me to the door. Her voice was strained: “If I was willing to accept your lie, to give up a chunk of my income for the next umpty-ump years, do you know how I must feel about you? How many women do you know would be willing to do that?”
“You’ve got a problem.”
“If telling the truth is a problem, then I wish you had the same problem. Now is when we need to sit down and talk.”
Her words made my soul ache. She was telling the truth. So many truths at one time. I just didn’t know if her truth was my truth.
She said, simply, “You don’t understand, do you?”
“Understand what?”
“My passion for you.”
“Can you have the same enthusiasm for my child?”
“After watching how you lost your mind the moment you heard Malaika’s voice, I should be asking if you’d have any left over for me.”
It was time for me to find my own corner in the sky. I walked away. She ran to the top of the stairs and called out my name.
I turned, faced her.
She asked, “You still love your ex-wife?”
“I love you more than I loved Malaika.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I didn’t kill you ten minutes ago.”
She chuckled. “I wish you had. It would’ve made my life easier.”
“Wouldn’t’ve done much for mine.”
A moment passed.
“What I know is that I love you, Vince.”
“Do you?”
“If I didn’t, I would’ve stabbed you in your heart when you hit me.”
The landlord’s door jerked open. Juanita’s cute little voice snapped, “Did I just hear you say that he hit you?”
Dana said, “Mind your own business.”
Juanita’s door slammed like a gunshot. Then our door closed, easy.
Inside a coffin-size hallway, I leaned against the wall, wiped away the dampness the burning smoke and loss had brought to my eyes.
Voices were still on the street.
I was ashamed to step out into the streetlights because my neighbors might still be out, in lawn chairs, eating ham sandwiches and waiting for the second act of the Negro Follies. I’d been handcuffed. Slave-marched in front of the whole damn neighborhood.
A faint voice said, “Mr. Browne? You all right?”
It was Naiomi. She’d opened their door. The light in the hall had been replaced with a sixty-watt bulb, so her concerned expression was clear.
Naiomi was talking, but I wasn’t in the mood to listen. I was bewildered. Didn’t know how I got where I was, didn’t know where I fit in life. Wanted to know how I could set an example of righteousness for Kwanzaa if I couldn’t set an example for my damn self.
Naiomi suggested, “Stay somewhere else tonight.”
I nodded.
She spoke like she was reading my corrupted mind. “We’re rowing in the same boat, Mr. Browne.”
My eyes rose and met hers. Feelings were shared. Her empathy was strong. I wanted to tell her not to gaze down on me like that at a time like this, not while everything in my life was jumbled.
Juanita called Naiomi’s name. She followed her commanding officer’s voice back inside.
The people outside had gone on about their business. That was the attention span of the big city. They’d moved on. Cars screeched over the dip at Degnan. Across the street a sister was having a church gathering in her one-bedroom apartment, playing her gospel so loud that angels needed earplugs to keep from going deaf.
I coughed. Fumes mixed with the sweat drying on my skin. Flesh smoldering. Ashes clung to the sweat on the back of my hands.
From the courtyard, I saw Dana standing in our window, arms folded underneath her breasts, rocking side to side. She closed the blinds.
19
Vince
Womack said, “Damn. She got you pretty bad.”
Velvety music was gliding in the background, drifting on the wings of KUSC, USC’s classical music station.
Rosa Lee said, “Womack has some more sweats that you can wear.”
I shook my head. “I’m cool.”
My agony had been taken to Womack’s duplex, in his bathroom.
Rosa Lee was dabbing peroxide on my back, mothering me while she chastised me with sisterly words.
She shook her head in disbelief. “Vince, there’s no way you’re going to make me believe that Dana did this.”
“I told you what happened.”
Womack had Ramona, the girl of his dreams, on his shoulders. She was crying when I came in, but had fallen asleep with him bouncing her. Womack headed down the hallway, took Ramona to her crib.
Rosa Lee asked, “How soon before they go back to Germany?”
I answered, “Don’t know. Didn’t get a chance to ask.”
Womack was back in the doorway, wearing checkered boxers and a T-shirt, a Djarum hanging off the tip of his lips. If he had a smoke on the tip of his lips, something had him rattled. He had an oversize Tommy Hilfiger shirt slung over his shoulders. He tossed that to me.
I’d calmed down enough for me to realize that the kitchen smelled like flowers. Roses that came from their front yard. A six-dollar bean pie was on the counter next to the Black & Decker toaster. Their fridge had a fresh harvest of kiddie drawings taped to the front. Love Mommy. Love Daddy. Love Grandpa. Two
Goose-bumps
books were on the kitchen table next to little toys that might’ve come in boxes of malnutrition disguised as Happy Meals.