by J. J. Murray
Cherry Grove Middle School, where I teach history to seventh graders and sometimes actually do some of that damn paperwork. Whenever we have a faculty food day, other teachers ask, “What do you call it?” I tell them it’s my lunch. They always want the recipe, but I tell them that there isn’t one, it’s just something I whipped up. They look at me strangely after that, but they eat it and ask for seconds. I’m always taking home empty containers. There’s always some chicken, pork, or beef soaking in
What the hell’s that kind of sauce Edie was always abusing? Something Oriental, sweet, and brown. I check Henry’s fridge and find it. Edie and Henry share the same tastes?
Yaschida sauce and fresh veggies and salad fixings in my fridge, just in case The One makes a surprise visit. But there isn’t any alcohol in my fridge. None. No soul mate of mine is going to get drunk on beer or wine.
He’s going to get drunk on me.
I never could get enough of a buzz from Edie alone. She didn’t take my breath away, just what little money I had. So whiskey sours made her somewhat sweeter, and even when they didn’t, they at least made me numb. Ebony, though—the girl made me high. Drunk. Intoxicated. Shit-faced. Not exactly a romantic thing to say, but it was true. The girl made me shit-faced drunk with happiness. Ebony was and probably still is the most beautiful person that I have ever met, only she never seemed to notice it. She was—and I’m sure that she still is—a natural beauty. We’ll just have to make this version of Ebony a natural beauty who doesn’t think she’s beautiful.
The One can’t mind if I’m not beautiful. I’m what you might call naturally rugged-looking, like I been in a few fights. I’m not homely or anything—I have some sexy-ass eyes and thighs, now—but I just haven’t been blessed by what White America wants in its caramel-covered black beauties. I’m thick. I’m intimidating. I’m The Commodores’ “Brick House.” I have long fingers and toes, long skinny feet, tiny ears, dark brown eyes, and the darkest skin allowed by law in the state of Pennsylvania.
I once got pulled over so a cop could check my tinted windows, then he says, “No, everything is okay.” Asshole. If I tinted my windows any more than they already are, no cop would ever see me.
I’m not sepia, café au lait, ginger, mocha, coconut, or any other tropical flavor. I’m black, and I’m beautiful, only my hair doesn’t seem to know it. My hair looks good the day it’s done, then flies away little by little until the next time I have it styled. My students can tell what day of the week it is just by looking at my hair—and my clothes. I generally start out nice and professional and end up wrinkled and tacky. Rack Room supplies me with comfortable shoes, and when I’ve done all the laundry, I sometimes find outfits that match like they’re supposed to. It’s not easy, though, because I know that washer of mine has something against me. Dark clothes go in dark and come out gray, lights and whites go in white and come out gray, and grays go in gray and get grayer. If you take me in from a distance, I look like I play for the Oakland Raiders in their silver and black uniforms.
What else, what else, what else? How does she get around? And does she like to get around? If she’s driving around Pittsburgh, the pothole capital of America, she’ll have to hate driving with a passion.
My soul mate can’t mind if I don’t drive. I own an SUV, a Suzuki Sidekick, but I don’t like to drive. Too much stress, too many decisions, too many street signs to read, and too many potholes to avoid while someone’s on my ass honking and flipping me off because I actually drive the speed limit in this town.
Oh, and the accidents. The first one wasn’t my fault. A sneaky light pole in a parking lot jumped out behind me one night. Blew out my back window and flattened my spare. And the second accident, well, let’s just say that one-way streets in downtown Pittsburgh should be outlawed. The cab I hit wasn’t damaged too badly, but the cabbie showed up in traffic court practically in traction, a neck brace turning his face beet red. My monthly car insurance payment is almost as high as the mortgage payment on my condo. I really should sell the Sidekick, but I might need it one day…probably to pick up The One who has never found the damn time to get his own damn license.
Hobbies? Ebony had so many, but one she stuck with was reading. And what she read and shared with me opened my eyes in so many ways…
My Boo has to be someone who likes to read, who consistently finds time to read, who makes time to read, who even schedules time to read. In other words, he has to be anal as hell about reading.
On my lunch breaks, I cross four lanes of traffic to a park, where I walk by any man who is reading something other than a newspaper or magazine. Then I check him out and what he’s reading—in that order. If he’s old and stank, I keep on walking. And if he’s younger and doesn’t smell too bad, I slow down. If I’ve already read the book he’s reading, I try to start a conversation. “That’s a wonderful book, isn’t it?” I ask. I’ve noticed that the word “wonderful” is used a lot on the back covers of paperbacks. Most times I get nods, a smile, an occasional grunt. One time, though, a white man, who looked Italian with his twisted nose and hairy eyebrows, actually said a complete sentence. “I know,” he said in such a way as to tell me: “Get lost, wench.” If I haven’t read the book, I search it out, blow off all my grading, and read it that very night. Only the next day, the man has gone on to another book or isn’t reading that day. If I can’t finish it by the next day, I sometimes sit where the man had been reading the day before hoping he’ll come by. That hasn’t happened…yet.
I’m not crazy, so why do I do this? Just in case The One has read it. Then we’ll have something more in common. Online book clubs have helped me a lot in this area. I’d never join a book club, though I really enjoy discussing books. Book clubs are just too communist for me. “Everyone this month will read this book,” they say. Well, what if I don’t want to? What if I’d rather read several books simultaneously? Just last week I
What would Ebony be reading now? She always loved the ocean and the beach, and in Pittsburgh, it’s all about rivers—the Ohio, the Allegheny, and the Monongahela. I hook the laptop to Henry’s phone, and after stressing over all the access-number choices, I get on America Online and run a few book searches with “river” in the title at Amazon.com. Once I have a collection, I continue to type:
was on a river kick and read The River, Cane River, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Mississippi Solo, Mystic River, and even cracked Huckleberry Finn for the climactic river scene. I even looked up whitewater rafting and paddleboat trips on the Internet.
Since I believe the number seven is magic, I once read
Seven, Ebony’s magic number. I wore that number in Little League, in CYO basketball at St. Pat’s, in Pop Warner football, and even taped it to my T-shirt whenever I played street hockey for the P-Street Rangers. “I like your number,” Ebony told me the first time we met. My number was one of the reasons she said she became interested in me. “It was like a sign or something,” she said.
Another book search later, and I continue plucking the keys:
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Seven Daughters of Eve, Seven Up, The Seven Sins of Memory, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, The Seven Storey Mountain, and The Seven Steps to Nirvana. And what did I learn? The number seven helps writers sell books. I haven’t started on all those alphabet mystery writers yet, but I will. I’ve got plenty of time, and because I am who I am, I’ll be starting with the letter Z. Those authors have some writing to do to catch up with me!
Maybe I should name my book Searching the Seven Seas for Ebony. Henry would say it wouldn’t fit on the cover, and Eliot would say it wouldn’t fit on a movie theater marquee. I count the syllables. Ten exactly. Carlton Muse, the blank verse poet, would probably have an ear-gasm. Writing wouldn’t nearly be as frustrating if the title you lived with for a year or two was actually accepted by the marketing department.
I re-read Ebony’s back story so far and realize that I’ve created a lonely middle school teacher who wou
ld rather…what? She’d rather write, just like me. Maybe she’ll even have an “I’d Rather Be Writing” bumper sticker on her Sidekick. Let’s make her an aspiring writer:
My One and Only can’t mind that I’m a frustrated novelist who has more rejection letters than pages of a novel. I looked into the whole subsidy publishing thing, but I didn’t have the fifteen grand up front. I checked out POD (Print-On-Demand) publishing, but it sounded too scientific. Saying “I am a POD author” might freak people out. I guess I could go to Quik Copy and crank out my novel and slap some staples on it, but I only have a ten-percent discount card at Quik Copy, and the machines I choose always chew up my originals.
But it isn’t about the money. Okay, it’s a little about the money, but it’s more about validation. I want to be noticed as an adequate writer. Not a great one. Just adequate.
And paid enough to quit teaching seventh graders for all eternity.
Several of my rejection letters contain the word “idiosyncratic,” and a few even say my work is “quirky,” “strange,” and “eccentric.” I always like to keep the reader guessing…which is probably why my novel’s plot is too unpredictable and unbelievable. “Too dense for mass consumption,” one letter states in bold italics.
What’s my novel about? Well, it’s kind of an autobiography, and it tells the tale of a normal, regular, middle-aged hoochie in search of her Boo.
It’s not as depressing as you might think.
I titled it A Regular Woman the first time around, mailing it to every publisher and agent in New York, many of whom didn’t have the decency to write me a rejection letter. Maybe they thought it would be about a woman who didn’t have a problem with constipation. The second time around, I changed the title to The Quest for the Holy Male and maybe changed a paragraph or two. Same result. This time I’m sending it out as Soul Quest. I think it’s a snappy title, and all the publish-it-yourself books teach you that a good title will often sell a bad book. Case in point: Bad as I Wanna Be by Dennis Rodman. I never should have read that book. It has ruined me for life when it comes to plotting my stories because it has no plot.
Time to throw in the sex, as if I’m the one experienced enough to write about it. All I had growing up was this incredible fantasy life. And Ebony. But I guess most writers who saturate their books with steamy sex are writing about what they’ve never done, either. Fantasy, that’s all it is. Ebony will just have to be more like me in this book:
The One also can’t care that I’m not that experienced. The first time I made out was on a balmy Friday night in high school. The boy had a zit on his chin. The next day, I had a matching zit on my chin. The following Monday, we were the “Zit Couple” at school.
It was a very short relationship.
It was tough for me in high school. I had braces for six years to cure a vicious Bugs Bunny overbite and crossed front teeth like the creature in Alien. I had so many teeth pulled that I almost became addicted to “sweet air” at the dentist. Though I have very nice teeth now—a couple of friends even say my teeth look like dentures—no high school boy could look at me then and see into my smile’s future. And I still wore a retainer at night in college. I freaked out this one brother during my first marijuana experience. He thought my face had melted or something.
Maybe marijuana wasn’t all that he was doing that night.
And my first time was horrible. I was on the beach during spring break in Florida with a bottle of Hennessy and a boy—in that order—and the next thing I know, a cop is shining a flashlight on my ass. We never found the boy’s underwear, and I found sand up in all my crevices for days after that. I haven’t been completely celibate ever since, but I think I’ve got enough saved up to satisfy The One. At least I hope I do.
I have to give Ebony a shortcoming, something that embarrasses her that Johnny…Nicoletto will help her overcome. Where did “Nicoletto” come from? Must be a name from back in my childhood. What kind of shortcoming can I give her? She, of course, will rock his world, but nothing embarrassed Ebony. Nothing. Everything that girl did she did with style, grace, and flair, and she could dance so gracefully and—
Hmm. Would it be too ironic to have a black woman who can’t dance? Oh, the letters Desiree will get. “Every black person I know can dance, ho!” the letters and e-mails will shout, probably in all capital letters. But not all black people can dance well, so why should I perpetuate a stereotype? This version of Ebony is going to break more of those so-called “rules” that book critics demand never be broken:
I guess the main thing my soul mate can’t mind is the fact that I can’t dance. I can’t dance. At all. At least I can admit that, unlike that Vanilla Ice fool. I’m a little embarrassed about it, but at least I have the sense to stay seated at clubs while other hoochies practically have sex on the dance floor with their dance partners. That isn’t dancing.
That’s public dry humping.
At a sock hop in middle school, a friend of mine told me that I danced to the words and not the music—and I didn’t even know the words. At my junior prom, I danced so wildly that I accidentally kneed my date in the groin. He sang like Michael Jackson for the rest of the night. In college, I enjoyed pinballing around the mosh pits, and even there I was a klutz. I know, a tall black girl flying around in a mosh pit isn’t exactly what Malcolm X was talking about when he said, “By any means necessary.” Anyway, I’d jump up when the rest of the moshers would hit the floor, and I would dive into their arms, only to end up with my nose corkscrewed into the floor.
I used to watch Happy Days when I was a kid and wish that I could dance like those freckled white kids. It looked so easy. Maybe I was born in the wrong decade. I even took a free dancing lesson from Arthur Murray Dance Studios. I more or less learned the bossa nova, and that night I went to a club and tried it out, only to find that doing the bossa nova by yourself looks wack. The dancers around me gave me plenty of room, and for that I’m grateful, but…
No, I’m no dancer. So my soul mate has to know that I can’t dance, and he can’t care that I can’t dance. He can’t mind if I nurse a drink at a club while he dances the night away. But he has to go home with me.
If he wants to.
I look up and see sunbeams winking on the bay. I am wasted, my eyelids as heavy as the waves rolling in, but I have one more chapter in me. I throw open every window in Henry’s apartment, put “I Wish” on repeat-play, and let my fingers roll:
Chapter 2
I used to be a basketball star. I was a playground legend. No boy could outplay me. Maybe that was why I had so few dates. Still, it got me a scholarship for a full ride to Pitt.
Then I got pregnant. Didn’t mean to. Just sort of happened. I don’t want to talk about it because it happened so long ago, and my baby daddy isn’t worth talking about except to say that he’s been in and out of prison more times than those Hollywood stars go in and out of rehab. I’m not even sure where he is now, and I don’t give a shit. I’m my daughter’s mama and daddy, and that’s all that’s really ever mattered to me or to her.
Well, you know Pitt didn’t want me after that, which is pure bullshit. They couldn’t wait a few months for me to have the baby and then get back into shape. I wouldn’t have been good for recruiting or something, I don’t know. As big as I got, I might not have fit in the team picture. But the shit doesn’t work the same way for the brothers. Seems like every last one of them has a baby somewhere, but that doesn’t stop them from keeping their scholarships. They all have to be covered with tattoos and have a few chaps to earn high NBA draft choices.
So I had my baby—a little girl I named Candy—and started taking classes at Allegheny Community College while working as a housekeeper at the Airport Marriott. It wasn’t my house, but I kept it. You wouldn’t believe the shit that I had to clean up in that fancy place, and let me tell you, rich people’s shit stinks, too. Worst four years of my life, but Mama and Daddy made it tolerable by keeping Candy for me, and I finished my associate�
�s degree in child development in four years. Oh, I had a Jamaican man, Phillip, try to marry me, but he was only a cook at the Marriott. Probably needed me to keep his ass in the country.
At twenty-two, with the cutest four-year-old being spoiled rotten by my parents, I got it in my head to go to a real college. I got accepted at Clarion, walked on to the basketball team, and I kicked some serious ass for two years. There isn’t a single-season rebounding or scoring record at Clarion that I don’t still own to this day.
I also picked up my history degree along the way. Why history? I was always good at it, I wanted to know every little thing about every little thing since the day I was born, and I knew I could get a job somewhere teaching in the inner city because I’m black. There aren’t many of us left teaching, much less teaching in the ’hood.
Now I’m teaching some of the orneriest suburban seventh graders, every last one of them trifling, and I’m also coaching Cherry Grove’s girl’s basketball team. Despite all my knowledge and mad skills, we haven’t won but five games in the last ten years, and all five wins came against some Christian school that looked heavenly but played like hell.
The girls at Cherry Grove just don’t have a single clue as to how to ball. Oh, they all know how to dress, because all their shit matches, right down to the little balls on their footie socks. But the bitches trip over the damn painted lines on the court half the time, fix their hair before they take a shot, check out little boys when they should be rebounding, and cry because they chipped a nail while dribbling. Trifling. I’ve tried to quit coaching them for the last four years, but no one at Cherry Grove wants to endure the embarrassment I’ve been through.