by Omar Tyree
Sharron, tickled by his outrage, egged him on some more.
“Am I getting on your nerves right now?” she asked him with a knowing grin.
He ignored her.
“If I am, just remember that it’s my birthday. So I can do that. When your birthday comes around in February, I’ll let you get on my nerves. Okay?”
He tried his hardest not to laugh. Don’t go out like no fool, man, he told himself. She’s trying to play you out. But he couldn’t help it. So he chuckled at it anyway. She was projecting that they would still be together when next February rolled around in year 2000.
They relaxed in the middle of the heavy, slow-moving traffic on Natural Bridge Avenue, pleased with each other’s company. Anthony forgot about his embarrassment while they made their way through the weekly teenage crowd.
“Where are you taking me to now?” Sharron asked him, curious about their next destination.
“To the Admiral,” he answered, referring to the boat casino that sat on the St. Louis side of the Mississippi River. Then he took a last-minute detour and headed north on Jennings Station Road, toward his old stomping grounds. Home.
“Ah, isn’t the river the other way, or are you trying to take Route 70?” Sharron asked him.
He smiled. “I just wanted to show you where I grew up first,” he told her.
“Oh,” she responded. “That’s nice.” She was actually surprised by it. “Does your family still live here?” she asked, setting him up for her next big question.
“Yeah, they still live here.”
Then she smiled. “So, are you gonna introduce me to your mother?”
He smiled back at her. What the hell? Sharron was a good girl. His mother would probably like her. Like her a lot.
“I gotta go in the house first to make sure that she’s dressed for visitors,” he responded.
Sharron was surprised again. He had no hesitation about it. That made her a bit nervous. What kind of a mother did he have anyway? Was she protective? Was she tough? Anthony had already told her that his mother had raised three boys, and contributed to raising a few of his cousins. In fact, the Poole family seemed loaded with men, and was very different from her own extended family of women down in Memphis.
Sharron sat quietly and was still nervous as they pulled up to a nice, working-class, three-bedroom brick home with a healthy green lawn and a private garage.
“I’ll be right out,” Anthony told her and ran inside.
Oh my God! Sharron thought to herself in a panic. I wasn’t prepared for this. What if his mother doesn’t like me?
It was too late for worries. Anthony was already on his way back to the car, and was smiling.
“What she say?” she asked him as soon as he opened the door to help her out.
“She said, ‘Bring her on in!’”
He made his mother sound tough already. What kind of a woman used such language? Bring her on in! Or was that Anthony’s paraphrase?
Sharron hit that front door and nearly tripped into the house, she was so nervous. She had never dreamed of meeting the mother of a player. Many a woman would wonder if loose men even had mothers. But they did.
“So this is the birthday girl?” Mrs. Poole asked, embarrassing Sharron at first sight. “Well, go on. Sit down.”
Sharron didn’t know what to do with herself. She was only bluffing Anthony. He went ahead and marched her in out of the blue to meet his mother, a medium-sized, dark brown, intense woman with a short natural do. And, when Mrs. Poole looked at you, she really looked at you! That didn’t do Sharron’s nerves a bit of good. She took a seat on the sofa across from Mrs. Poole’s black leather La-Z-Boy chair and crossed her legs like a lady.
“So, where are you from, Sharron?” his mother asked her.
“Memphis,” she answered. I wonder what he told her about me, she pondered. If he told her anything, being a player and all. He probably said that I ask him a bunch of crazy questions. Oh my God!
To make matters worse, Anthony left her alone in the living room with his mother in search of snacks and juice in the kitchen. He didn’t hurry back either. Was it payback for all of the questions she had tortured him with? What a cruel joke to play on a woman on her birthday.
“Memphis? What are you doing all the way up here?” his mother asked.
“I went to school at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.”
“UMSL? Did you finish?”
“Not yet,” she responded self-consciously. She did plan to finish someday.
“Mmm-hmm,” Mrs. Poole mumbled, pulling out a cigarette. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
Sharron did mind, but do you think she planned to say so?
“No, I don’t mind,” she answered quickly enough.
Mrs. Poole lit up so fast she might as well have never asked the question.
“Being around so many men all your life can work your nerves,” she commented through her first drag. Sharron took in the neatness of the room and imagined how hard it would be to keep a place so nice with no other women around.
Mrs. Poole added, “I got three boys, a separated husband, two brothers, three brothers-in-law, and plenty of hardheaded nephews.
“If you were around all them damn boys every day, you would have started smoking too,” she added. “But Anthony is a good man. He ain’t never been in no kind of trouble. Or at least not the kind that you can go to jail for.”
Sharron relaxed, trying her best not to cough, and took it all in like a lecture before a final exam.
Mrs. Poole took another drag and said, “Anthony’s hard on women. I might as well let you know that.” She took a peek at the kitchen to make sure he didn’t overhear.
“All of my boys are. They got it from their daddy,” she said. “The man just couldn’t keep his hands off of women. Seemed like every other week I had to chase a new girl down with my knife. After a while, I just couldn’t do that shit no more. You know what I mean?” she asked. “If your ass wanna be a damn alley cat, then you stay your ass out in the alley!”
Sharron had to stop herself from laughing, because it wasn’t funny. She didn’t know how Mrs. Poole would take it anyway. Anthony reappeared with cookies and juice in his hands, and an extra glass for Sharron.
“Mom, you out here talking about Dad again. Y’all know y’all still love each other.”
His mother planted that intense stare of hers on him as Anthony sat down next to Sharron on the sofa.
“Love ain’t crazy no more, boy. No more!”
Then she looked at them both as they sat together comfortably.
“So, how long you two known each other?” she asked them.
Anthony started to chuckle, but Sharron was horrified.
Shit! she thought. Why did she have to ask us that? She wished they had never come to visit. Or at least not without her preparing for it. What a cruel, cruel joke Anthony was playing on her.
After neither one of them answered quickly enough, his mother said, “What, a week or two? How long?”
Anthony was still chuckling.
Sharron spoke up and said, “Longer than that.”
That only made him laugh harder at her vagueness.
“I see,” Mrs. Poole mumbled. “It sounds to me like you two have a lot of getting-to-know-each-other to do.”
“We sure do,” Sharron agreed. “I know that already.”
That stopped Anthony’s silliness quick! He realized what she meant. He would have a much longer wait for the flesh.
Fuck! he thought to himself. Time to get the hell out of here! Damn! I’ll never get with this girl the way things are going.
“Well, you know what you have to do, girl. If you’re as smart as I think you are,” his mother responded to her. “You know what they want, so you have to know what you want.”
SHIT, MOM!
“Don’t look at me like that, boy,” she snapped at her son.
Anthony shook his head, pissed at himself for deciding to bring Sharron
to meet his mother. The doctor didn’t order that apple. No way!
“I didn’t appreciate that at all,” Sharron told him on their way downtown to the Mississippi River. By that time, it was nightfall. “That was not funny. And you set me up for that.”
Anthony didn’t consider it a piece of apple pie and ice cream either, but he had to laugh at it because it was funny. Sharron knew it too. That’s what life was made of. The unpredictable.
“It’s not funny, Anthony,” she insisted.
“Well, stop talkin’ ’bout it then, and let’s just finish your birthday.”
Sharron sulked for another few minutes in silence. Then she went back to her usual questions.
“So, your daddy was a player, too,” she said, almost as if she were talking to herself.
Anthony smiled. I guess it’s in my genes, he thought. He knew he could not express that thought to her. At least not until he got her, then he could finally get bold with his words.
“How was your daddy?” he asked her instead.
“My daddy was a good man who wanted good love. And he still is.”
“Did he get good love?”
“Yes, he did. And he still does.”
Anthony said, “What kind of woman is your mother?”
Sharron paused. She hadn’t talked about her mother with a man in a while. It was too painful. They didn’t care half of the time anyway. She wondered if Anthony would care.
“She died of cancer,” she told him flatly. Too flat. And she got the effect that she wanted. Shock.
Anthony looked over at her and said, “Damn. My bad. I didn’t know.”
She looked into his face to read it. “How could you? Unless I told you.”
“You did tell me. And … I’m sorry about that.”
Few men were inhumane enough to blow off someone’s mother dying of cancer. The most precious woman in the world to a man was his mother. So it should have been obvious that Anthony would care, just like he would care about his own mother dying of cancer.
“Did she smoke?”
Sharron nodded. “Mmm-hmm.”
Anthony didn’t know what else to say.
“Turn the radio on,” she told him.
He obliged.
She said, “I don’t really feel like going to the Admiral. I just want to get something to eat. Okay? Some seafood or something.”
“It’s your birthday, right? We’ll do whatever you want,” he told her.
She looked into his face and read it again. He looked serious enough.
“Whatever I want?” she asked him to make sure.
“Don’t go overboard with that,” he responded, grinning.
“I won’t. Just remember that you said that,” she told him.
They went ahead and had a nice dinner at The Sailor restaurant on the Mississippi, and talked and laughed until it was close to eleven o’clock at night. The waitress was hovering near their table, anxious to collect the check and her tip for their meals.
“I think this waitress is trying to send us a message,” Anthony told his birthday date.
Sharron laughed and said, “I know.” Then she gathered herself to leave, after a trip to the bathroom. When she returned, she knew exactly how she wanted their night to end.
“What do you want to do now?” Anthony asked her on their way out. Sharron was yawning. A bad sign for a player. She was too tired for dessert.
“Let’s go back to my place,” she said to his surprise. She made it sound as if she wanted him to stay for a while. And she did.
Finally! Anthony told himself. It took a little while. But I figured she’d want some on her birthday. That’s why I didn’t mind spending the whole day with her. It ain’t all that bad to treat a woman to everything she wants every once in a while. It ain’t that bad at all.
He drove back to Sharron’s apartment in University City in silence, while listening peacefully to soft music on the radio. Sharron had requested it, and Anthony was willing to grant her anything that would keep her in the mood.
As they pulled into the parking lot of her complex, she asked, “You ever listened to the rap group The Pharcyde?”
Anthony looked her over, wondering where the question was coming from. “Yeah, why?” he asked, confused.
The Pharcyde? What the hell is she talking about? I thought she wanted to listen to smooth music.
“What about their second album, Labcabincalifornia?”
“What? ‘Can’t keep runnin’ awaaaay’? That one?”
She laughed at his attempt to sing. “Yeah, that one.”
“I mean, I don’t have the CD, but I liked that song.”
She nodded. They parked and climbed out of the car.
“It’s another song on there that I want you to listen to,” she told him.
“I didn’t know you listened to rap music like that,” he said to her, still confused about it.
“Actually, it’s Celena’s CD,” she responded with a smile.
“Oh. Well, that makes more sense. She seems like she listens to more rap.”
“She does,” Sharron confirmed.
She led him up to her apartment and greeted her roommate, who was stretched out in the living room and watching a Hellraiser video with a pillow to her face.
“Girl, you got nothing else to do but watch a horror movie in here, scared to death by yourself? You need to at least turn that thing down some,” Sharron snapped at her.
Celena viewed Anthony walking in with her before she responded.
“You ditched me on your birthday, so what else could I do?” she commented.
Sharron gave her the evil eye and led Anthony to her room of stuffed animals.
“Damn. Look like a circus in here. You need a hug that bad?” he joked to her.
She didn’t deny it. “Yes, I do. And I’ll be right back, so make yourself comfortable,” she told him.
Anthony ventured right over to the bed to lay down on it amongst the teddy bears and other stuffed animals, pushing them aside to make room for himself.
“What are you doing?” Celena asked her roommate apprehensively. She just knew that Sharron was not planning on jumping bones for her birthday with Mr. Noname, whom she’d met only a month ago. That wasn’t even Sharron’s style. And the whole Married Man thing was just an experiment.
“I’m minding my own business,” Sharron told her. “Now can I borrow one of your CDs?”
“Sean Love called you today to wish you a happy birthday,” Celena said, ignoring Sharron’s plea.
“That’s nice.”
“Aren’t you gonna call him back?”
“What do you care, Celena? It’s too late for that anyway.”
“Yeah, I guess you can’t, ’cause you got company now,” she said.
“Look, I’m just gonna go get the CD then.”
“What CD?” Celena asked.
“The Pharcyde.”
“The Pharcyde? Girl, that ain’t no music to get busy to. What are you thinkin’?”
“Who said I was getting busy?”
“What are you doing then?”
“Like I said, minding my own business.”
Sharron marched into Celena’s room, found the CD, and attempted to march back out before Celena jumped up and stopped her at the door.
“Sharron, you’re not gonna regret this in the morning are you?” she asked, still concerned about her roommate’s intentions for the night.
“Regret what?”
“You know.”
Sharron pushed her aside. “No, I don’t know. Now please, turn this TV down so I can hear myself think in here.”
“It’s not that loud.”
‘Yes it is.”
Celena grabbed on to Sharron’s arm before she reentered her room with her company.
“If you need me, girl, just holler.”
Sharron looked her in the face and shook her head with a smirk. “Girl, please.” She walked back into her room, shut and locked the door, and t
old Anthony to take his shoes off while on the bed.
“Don’t you have any bed manners?” she teased him.
He smiled. “I got plenty of bed manners.”
“I’m sure you do.” She slipped The Pharcyde CD into her Aiwa stereo system on the tall dresser. “Okay, you told me that I can have anything I want for my birthday, right?”
He was hesitant. “Yeah, I said that.”
But not anything anything, he thought. What is she getting at?
“Well, I want you to listen to this Pharcyde song. Okay?”
Anthony smiled, as confused as ever. What the heck did The Pharcyde have on that second album of theirs?
Sharron clicked on her night lamp, put on her song, and scampered back to the bed to get cozy with her company. Anthony listened to see exactly what the hell was on her mind. He found that out as the four-member, West Coast rap group crooned over a smooth rhythm while each expressing a girlfriend’s desire to be accompanied for a night without the greediness of sex. “She Said,” in a word, was a song that catered to a woman’s need for affection. Even late-night affection from a man, without the cloudiness of sex. And Anthony understood Sharron’s message, loud and clear. The song sounded good anyway. Real good. And he granted her wish, because it made sense. So they held each other and talked through the night, listening to the entire CD before falling asleep in each other’s arms with their clothes on.
You did what?! And you didn’t even try to take her clothes off? Because of a song? Aw, man, dawg. You was my hero! But like they say, heroes ain’t nothing but a sandwich!” Tone joked over the phone as he was given the word on Sharron’s birthday date. Ant didn’t feel embarrassed by it at all. He felt enlightened. Relieved. Relieved of the pressure of having to score. Women just didn’t know how stressful it was for a man. Ant didn’t know himself until it was no longer an issue for him.
“It felt good though, man, that I could actually do it without getting the hell up out of there, Tone,” he explained.
Tone sucked his teeth. “Aw, man, I had to do that shit plenty of times,” he admitted. “It didn’t feel that great to me. I was waking up with blue balls. Every single time.”
Ant laughed. “Well, that wasn’t something that I was used to.”
“Now it is. ’Cause you may not ever get this girl.”