On the Line (11 page)

Two years after that, a For Rent sign went up in the space where the bookstore used to be and we refinanced the brownstone and took out ten thousand dollars to rent and renovate the place.

This is where I write to you from today.

The place where I grew, listened and learned is once again a place of enlightenment and consciousness.

The neighborhood is vibrant again. A little bit lighter than it was when I grew up, but that's okay. This generation has greater demons to fight than my mama did in the sixties and seventies, and it's going to take people of all colors and from all backgrounds to defeat this beast.

But what I wanted you and your listeners to know is that, yes, Black Power died some years ago—walked right into my store, sat down on the bench, smiled at my little girl, closed her eyes and fell right out of this life.

We had a service for her here at the bookstore, a going home like you wouldn't believe, with food and music and stories that no one had told in years, and before we knew it, we were walking down Lewis Avenue, beating a drum and yelling, “Power to the People!”

Because know it or not, that's what she'd been to the people in this neighborhood—power. She gave it power when we couldn't find it for ourselves; she kept us conscious even when we didn't want to be.

And so while Black Power is laid to rest in Cypress Hill Cemetery, I make a pilgrimage there every twelfth of the month, clean off her grave site and place fresh flowers on her headstone. And this reminds me Black Power may be gone, maybe invisible to the eye, may not be marching up and down the sidewalk and screaming, “We shall overcome,” but she no longer has to. Her job is done. She is embedded in me, in everyone who ever came in contact with her, and her memory lives on in the stories we tell and so she lives on. She lives on.

 

I drop the letter on my lap. I want to laugh, to make a mockery of the writer as I always do, but somehow I can't. What the writer said hits me somewhere deep inside, resurrects something inside of me that I thought was dead. Like I said before, I live well. But reading this letter makes me think of how all that has been made possible and it damned sure isn't only because of anything I've done, but the work and struggles of folks like this chick's mother.

Instead of feeling uplifted, a wave of sadness sweeps through me. She was proud of her mama. I know I can't say the same. My mother! Most days she couldn't even remember my name. Yeah, that's a part of my life that no one other than Macy knows about. This whole life I'm living now is far removed from how I grew up. I didn't only change my life, I changed my name and pulled myself up out of the depths of drugs, violence and unwanted sex.

There are some mornings when I wake up terrified that it's all a dream and that this life I'm living is simply a product of my vivid imagination. I gotta be on top, gotta stay on top, 'cause if I don't, I may just fall all the way back down into that pit of ugliness that I came from.

I fold the letter, but instead of putting it back in the bag, I put it in the drawer in my nightstand. Maybe on those mornings when I wake up terrified I'll read it again. I reach for the light and turn it off, then flip onto my side and squeeze my eyes shut. If I try really hard I'll sleep through the night and the demons of my past will stay in the shadows. If I try really hard.

I
t's about nine in the morning. When I don't get a sex workout to put me to sleep I generally only need a few hours' sleep to get through my day. Coffee, juice, a slice of toast and a cup of yogurt. That is my everyday breakfast. I don't get much of a chance to go to a gym, so I do attempt to watch what I eat. After all, I have to make sure I can get into my very expensive designer clothes. Holla!

The letters I read the night before still run around in the back of my head. Most of the time they don't get to me. It's all just a job, know what I mean. But every now and then some of them get under my skin, disturb all the dirt I've dumped over my own issues. Sometimes I think that's the reason I do what I do—make light of other folks' messes so that I don't have to deal with my own. Hey, this is too much introspecting for this time of the morning.

I walk into the living room and turn on the stereo.
The Steve Harvey Morning Show
is on. I love that show. Truth be told, I never listen to WHOT unless it's a rerun of my own show! Sipping on my cup of coffee I crack up listening to Steve and Tommy do Country News. That skit is always a howl.

I'm feeling better already. One of these days I'm gonna call in and tell them what a good job they're doing and how they get me through my mornings—anonymously, of course.

Humming to Robin Thicke's latest song, I saunter into my office to get down to work. Like I said in the beginning, I get tons of letters, more letters than I can ever read and certainly more than will ever get on the air. The ones that don't go live on the show I often post on my Web site and let my listeners post their comments. And trust me, the Web site is almost as wild and crazed as the show.

I sit down behind my desk and assume the position then take the first letter on the top out. I slit the envelope open with my gold-embossed letter opener. Funny, the opener came in the mail one day and I almost freaked. I just knew it was from some crazed listener sending me some kind of weird message. But it was only a thank-you gift for some advice I'd given that actually worked out. Oh yeah, I do get threats every now and again. Someone pissed off or a protester who thinks I should be banned, but I don't pay those folks much attention. The reason I'm so popular is because I'm wild and say the most outrageous things. So my motto is, if you don't like it, change the station! Simple, right?

Anyway, I open the letter from a woman who titles her letter, Between the Lines.

 

Dear Joy,

I hope you don't mind my calling you Joy. I was listening to your program day before yesterday, and that character…I mean the man on your show had me doing a slow burn. He's entitled to his stupidity, but he doesn't have the right to force it on innocent listeners. Imagine a man who speaks so fine and cultured like he does saying he doesn't believe there's anything a person can't control. He said there are no such things as impulses, fate, addiction, none of that. He doesn't believe anything he can't see, not much that he hears and very little that he touches. His words, Joy, not mine. You should've kicked him off the show. I wish I'd been there. If he had the burden my best friend's carrying, he wouldn't be so damned arrogant. Let me tell you about Dorothy Faye and what she told me.

Dorothy Faye Hodge lived high on the hog, thanks to her success as a voice teacher and the eagerness of black kids to get rich singing hip-hop and rap. She knew her BMW coupe looked out of place in Frederick, Maryland's lower middle-class black neighborhood, where the average person parked a five-year-old Hyundai in front of the house, but she didn't care. The girl had already seen her thirty-fourth birthday, but she told her friends she was twenty-eight and, to prove it, she was careful to wiggle when she walked…with the aid of her four-inch heels, that is.

That Saturday morning, Dorothy Faye wiggled out of the South Street Mall, found her way to the precious BMW that she'd parked in the underground garage, and had began to pull off the offending high-heeled shoes when she looked up and nearly fainted. She stared into the piercing blue eyes of an ash-blond woman she hadn't heard approach—and on that concrete she should have heard her.

“Who…who
are
you?” she asked the woman as shivers streaked through her.

“Why do you ask? You know who I am, because you're one of us, Dorothy Faye.”

In that warm spring weather, perspiration dripped from Dorothy Faye's forehead. Her teeth began to chatter, and she leaned back against her BMW for support. She glanced around for a means of escape or, at least, for the comfort of another person's presence, a stranger, anybody. Seeing no one, she turned back to the blue-eyed blonde but saw not even a shadow. Dorothy Faye stood in the vast underground garage completely alone.

Dorothy Faye had always refused to examine the strangeness about herself, blocking out her premonitions, forcing herself to forget the things she “saw” that later came to pass, as well as the things she “saw” that were so unreal she was ashamed to mention them to anyone.

“I wonder what that sister meant? I'm sure not blond, and my eyes are dark brown like my face.”

She remembered that she hadn't bought stockings, put her purchases in the car's trunk, locked it and went back inside the mall to buy some panty hose. “Wonder how come I feel so light, like I just lost thirty pounds. Humph, it's like somebody took a weight off my shoulders,” she said aloud. Her gaze took in a tall, slim man. From a distance, she saw that his eyes were fawn-like, his lips sensuous, his skin the color of a fine camel-hair coat. She licked her lips and began to salivate.

Revelation hit her and, when the man reached her, she stopped him. “Hello, Jonathan,” she said to the complete stranger. “I'm Dorothy Faye. Come with me.”

“I'm…I can't. I'm getting married next Saturday, and I'm on my way right now to get fitted for my tuxedo.”

Dorothy showed no concern for the man's reticence. She knew now that she was one of
them—
whoever they were—and that with her piercing gaze and newfound abilities, she could get him to do whatever she wanted, and she wanted him to make love with her. With her special powers, she had discerned that he was a gifted stud, and she intended to enjoy him for as long as she wanted him.

She extended her hand and waited until, at last, he took it. “Come with me,” she said.

“What do you want with me? And who are you, anyhow?” he asked, as if he recognized the hand of fate.

“You've got everything I always wanted and never had,” she told him as she led him to her car. “Are you hungry? I mean, did you eat a big breakfast? No, you didn't, did you? Don't worry. I'll feed you.”

She unlocked the front passenger's seat, and he got in. She'd never liked docile men, and she knew that this one wasn't, that he had no will at the moment other than her will. She hadn't hypnotized him, but had merely robbed him of his will until such time as she decided to return it to him. She stopped at a gourmet delicatessen and bought pastrami sandwiches, a loaf of Italian bread, deviled eggs, oyster chowder, a lobster salad, a pound of baked ham and a dozen and a half buttermilk biscuits.

“Who's going to eat all that?” he asked her when she returned to the car with two bags, one of which contained three bottles of white Burgundy wine.

“I don't expect there'll be anything left when you leave me,” she said, and watched his bottom lip drop. Aware of his chagrined demeanor, she patted his hand, started the BMW and headed for her apartment. “Don't worry. I'll keep you as happy as a little pig in hog heaven.”

She stopped the car in front of the apartment building in which she lived, unlocked the front passenger door and got out. As if she'd programmed him to do so, he walked around to the trunk of the car and waited. She opened the trunk. He took out her purchases and went with her to her apartment.

“Why don't you take a shower while I get you something to eat,” she said, smiling.

“What are you fixing for me?”

“Scrambled eggs, toast, sausage and coffee. And I'll give you a couple of martinis just the way you like them.” His eye sparkled, and she let him see her rubbing her breasts.

“Can I have some of that, too?”

Her left eye closed in a slow wink. “As much as you want and for as long as you want it.”

While he stared at her, his eyes took on a dreamy look. “I don't think I need any breakfast.”

“Oh, yes you do. You need every bit of energy you can get.”

His shower didn't take long, and he left his shirt and tie in the bathroom. “No point in putting that stuff on when you're only going to take it off me as soon as I eat,” he said, without resentment or any other kind of emotion. He sat at the dining room table in the chair at the place where she'd put his food. “Do you usually say the grace?” he asked her.

“Not this morning. I don't think the Lord approves of what I'm doing.”

After he ate heartily, she cleared the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher and returned to him with two dry martinis. “This is my favorite drink. I usually have a couple before dinner, but not after breakfast.” He drained the glass. “May I have another?” She looked at her watch. Hmm, twenty minutes after ten. Better not.

She thought for a minute. She had that gorgeous stud all to herself, and she didn't want him drunk. She took his hand and walked with him into her living room. “You can have a tiny sip of this one, but it's mine.” She held the glass while he sipped, put the drink on her coffee table and slid her hands slowly over his hard chest, taking pains to torment his pectorals. She teased and rubbed until his pupils began to dilate.

“My blouse is too hot.”

“May I remove it?” he asked her, and when he got her out of it, his Adam's apple began to bob so fast that she thought he might have convulsions. She unhooked her bra and let her size 38-D breasts hang free.

“May I…uh…what do you want me to do?” The blue-eyed blonde hadn't told her how to get a man to behave naturally while doing what she willed him to do. She concentrated. “From now on, you do what comes naturally unless I tell you otherwise.”

Immediately, his eyes darkened and desire flooded them with a heat that she knew could consume her if she was not in control.

A second later, she was flat on her back on her living room sofa. The feel of Jonathan's mouth sucking her right nipple while his fingers squeezed her left one brought moans and cries out of her and had her teetering near the precipice. He dragged her hips to the edge of the sofa, parted her legs and let her feel the power of his talented tongue while she begged for completion. He picked her up, carried her to her bedroom, kicked off his pants and shoes and, without waiting for an invitation, rested her ankles on his shoulders and plowed his penis into her. Within minutes, she erupted around him, shouting her triumph as she did so.

Dorothy Faye had just experienced her first orgasm, and she cradled his head to her breast as she anticipated many, many more. At 7:33 p.m., having unknowingly established a world record, Jonathan passed out. Not smelling salts, ice on his neck or slaps on his face revived him until, a few minutes after midnight, he stirred and asked where he was. Eager to resume their mind-shattering sexual exploits, Dorothy Faye tested Jonathan with her hands, lips and tongue, but he remained flaccid. Defeated, she commanded him to dress and leave, and when she figured he was sufficiently far from the building in which she lived, she restored his will and self-awareness.

“Now what?” she said to the silence that engulfed her. “I feel as if I've been celibate for a decade. I never used to feel like this. How am I going to find a man who's Jonathan's equal?” She didn't have to wait long.

Dorothy Faye went to church Sunday with the intention of asking forgiveness for her sin against Jonathan.

“Excuse me,” a man said as she was leaving the sanctuary after the sermon. “I didn't mean to step on your foot.”

She looked at the man, and her heartbeat seemed to slow down until it almost stopped. Another one. A man who could make a woman climb the walls and dance on the ceiling. “Come with me,” she said, forgetting the preacher's words about using people. “I want you. You come with me.”

He seemed uneasy. “My wife's waiting for me. I told her I'd be home by eleven o'clock. If I'm late—”

“You don't have to tell me. She'll raise hell. But she likes the way you put it down, so she'll get over it. You're coming with me.”

As she did with Jonathan, she stopped at a gourmet delicatessen and bought food, and as soon as they entered her apartment, she prepared the meal while he showered as she commanded.

After the meal, she stood behind his chair, massaging his neck and shoulders. “I'll get you a scotch and soda and you'll feel great.” When he didn't respond, she sat on his lap, released her left breast, and put her left hand behind his head. “I want you to enjoy yourself. Here, have some dessert.” He pulled the nipple into his mouth, released a harsh groan and sucked vigorously. She thought she'd lose her mind.

“You know what to do with a willing woman? Well, do it,” she told him.