Love in a Carry-On Bag

by Johnson, Sadeqa

  Blues, classical and jazz albums by Nina Simone, Dinah Washington, Muddy Waters, Mozart, Bach and Ray Charles were stacked against the eggshell walls, with countless others. Her wooden record player sat in the corner, with a thick film of dust covering the oak frame. When Warren lifted the top and dropped the needle, out belted Billie Holiday. Her sad, sultry voice was as much a part of his childhood as his favorite Spider-Man pajamas.

  Some day he’ll come along, the man I love.

  Warren hadn’t heard his mother’s favorite song in ages. The emotions behind everything that he carried over the last month welled up inside of him until it was difficult to stand. So he sat on the stool. His mother had loved Erica for him as much as he did, and the tears flowed with a furiousness that forced Warren to shove the collar of his dress shirt into his mouth. The grief hit him like a whirlwind. Warren had spent so much energy burying his true self beneath objects that were supposed to make him feel good: his shiny SUV, the eighth-floor condominium, his high-salaried job, all of the things that made him look established on paper. But the death of his mother followed by losing Erica made him feel hollow inside, like a forgotten conch shell. Once he allowed himself to be honest, pent up misery began unraveling and he couldn’t stop throwing it up. It left his body in spouts of babbling cries, coughing and clutching, kicking and screaming. This felt as though it went on forever, until Warren was weakened and wet, and his body just stopped and stooped over in silence. Then he heard the most familiar voice whispering in his ear, “Play son, play.”

  Warren was still sitting on the stool that his ancestors had shared, and as he placed his mouthpiece against his lips, he felt their kindred spirits traveling through his body. His mother’s lilac scent filled the small room.

  Now she was seated on the piano stool, her long fingers in position, nodding that it was time. A duet between Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong was next, and Warren and his mother joined them. As his notes pierced the air, his mother’s were soft, as if she were bathing him like she did when he was her baby. Warren replaced Billie with Bird, and as his mother’s petite foot worked the pedals, her entire body danced up and down the keys. When he played Coltrane’s “Favorite Things,” his mother played faster, bringing Warren to his feet. Once he was up, her fingers swept across the keys as if she were sprinkling his body with her special oils, while whispering, “This is your Purpose. You are a King.”

  Warren mashed his valves in acceptance of her gift, knowing at that moment that if he lifted his arm, he would fly.

  Once the records stopped, Warren’s body was spread across the floor like he had just finished making angels in the snow, and he stared without seeing the ceiling. His lips were dry and chapped, and he had lost all sense of time. Instead of playing the music, he cradled his horn in his arms and whistled the melodies, mimicking the notes with his fingertips. A telephone rang in the distance, but Warren’s ears only heard music.

  A few days later, he was still there.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Second Skin

  It was late Sunday afternoon when Warren heard an insistent knocking on his front door. He hadn’t left the apartment since rediscovering his music room, and was enjoying being zoned out and disconnected from the outside world. The banging increased with a steadiness that was both annoying and hard to ignore. Rolling onto his side, he stumbled to stand on bare feet. His knees wobbled and head spun from the sudden movement. On the walk down the hall he leaned against the wall for balance.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me,” her voice was small.

  Warren turned the knob and unlocked the door. The lights from the hall were bright and his gaze felt disoriented, but after squinting and stepping back he was able to focus.

  Blanche Laurent stood there removing her sunglasses. “What happened to you? You look like shit,” she touched his face with her hand. His bottom lip was bruised, and his chocolate skin ashen and dry. He was still wearing his tuxedo shirt and trousers from the night of the wedding, though damp and wrinkled. He smelled like sweat and spoiled salami.

  “What’re you doing here?” Warren backed away and shuffled across the room to the sofa, collapsing against the pillows.

  “Why is the music so loud?” Blanche scanned the apartment. Warren could hear her heels clicking around. The living room felt stuffy, and the leaves on his favorite fern drooped like dog’s ears. Warren felt weak and was slouched over when Blanche thrust a glass of water in his face.

  “Drink this.”

  Warren obeyed, and finished half the glass before setting it down on the table. His stomach ached. When was the last time he had a meal?

  “Bret was ranting about firing you on Friday…”

  “Friday?”

  “You know they don’t play the no call, no show. How could you stay out a whole week? Are you insane?”

  Warren scratched his head. He hadn’t realized so much time had passed.

  Blanche stood and paced through his living room. She wore a trench coat tied tightly at her waist and very high aqua and black printed heels. “In your defense I told him you called me sick. At first he didn’t believe me but, you know I can be very persuasive,” she looked down at him and smiled. Her lips were painted blood red and the sight of them made him nauseous.

  “How’d you find me?”

  “I know people in high places,” she purred. Blanche stopped in front of him and held his gaze. Even in his current state, Warren recognized that unmistakable look of desire in her eyes, and when she propped herself in the seat next to him he knew she had come to bone.

  Warren’s head felt groggy. He needed time to think. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” The front of her trench split and Blanche slid closer, showing off a pair of creamy thighs.

  “I’ma take a shower.”

  Blanche scooted forward as if to follow him, but he touched her shoulder and said, “Alone.”

  Twenty minutes later, Warren walked slowly down the hall wearing his shawl-collared robe, drying his hair with a hand towel.

  “I ordered Chinese,” Blanche leaned against the kitchen counter. The buckle on her trench was loose, revealing a diamond-studded bra. But before Warren could comment, the telephone rang. Happy for a distraction, he picked up the cordless on the second ring.

  “Hello. Hey, what’s up?” he signaled to Blanche that he would be right back, and carried the phone down the hall and into his bedroom, where he closed the door.

  “See you in half an hour,” he said into the receiver before ending the call. Ten minutes later he walked back into the living room, smelling like frankincense and dressed in black from head to toe. Blanche’s eyes twinkled as she put her hands on her hips and said, “I hope you like lo mein.”

  Warren didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so he kept his voice light as he confessed that he had to go.

  “But I’ve ordered food, and I was hoping…”

  “You can wait until the food arrives and then take it home with you,” he had his money clip in his hand and dropped a few bills on the countertop. The music had started up in his head, and when he reached for his trumpet case he couldn’t wait to shed.

  “Just let yourself out,” he replied, but when he glanced at Blanche the trench coat came down over her shoulders. Her panties were lace with the same diamond studs as her bra.

  “If there is no time for dinner, surely we can skip right to dessert,” she winked, cat-walking the few steps towards Warren. But when she leaned in to kiss him he pushed against her waist to hold her at a distance.

  “Perhaps some other time,” he tapped her wrist, and then eased out the door, shutting it behind him.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Believe Me When I Say

  “Like a moth to the flame burned by the fire.” Erica hummed and rocked in her seat. “My love is blind can’t you see my desire?”

  Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” became Erica’s theme song. It was
upbeat and lively and Erica needed upbeat. Upbeat gave her courage. So much courage that she was on the Accela express with a manuscript in her lap heading to D.C. After her night out with Tess she decided that if her relationship with Warren could be salvaged, then she had to cast pride aside and make the effort. Being put first was Warren’s biggest gripe, and she was determined to show him how vital he was to her. Erica couldn’t go on without him and she was prepared to beg, grovel and plead. She would even stand on her head while singing “I Apologize” by Anita Baker if that’s what it took to convince him. They belonged together, and she wasn’t leaving D.C. until he understood.

  The train sped into the station and Erica was one of the fastest passengers to disembark. Taking long strides, she made her way out to the taxi stand on Massachusetts Avenue. The line wasn’t long, and when she slid into the backseat of the cab she felt so optimistic that after rattling off the address to the driver she whispered to herself, “Please, get me to my man.”

  Her heart was beating like a conga drum when she reached his front lobby. She had no baggage, just her purse with an extra pair of panties in case he had gotten rid of her things. The doorman recognized her face and waved her through. On the elevator ride to his 8th floor condo her hands started to shake, and she reapplied her lip gloss and checked her nose through the reflection of the door for something to steady her. By the time the elevator arrived on his floor, her confidence had begun to waver. But Erica willed herself to continue down the hall by putting one foot in front of the other.

  The original plan was to knock, but at the last minute she decided that she hadn’t come all this way for him not to let her in. She decided she would use her key, and felt relieved when it turned in the hole with little effort.

  “Sweetie. You’re back. I knew you would change your mind.” Stiletto heels clicked from down the hall towards Erica, but she was so shocked to hear a woman’s voice that she couldn’t locate her tongue.

  “Honey, I…” Blanche turned the corner, but stopped moving when she saw Erica.

  In all of the scenarios that ran through Erica’s head, this one hadn’t made the cut. The longer she stood there the harder it was for her brain to process what was happening right in front of her: Blanche, in the middle of Warren’s apartment wearing a sleazy trench coat, under-damn-wear and some fuck me pumps. Erica could feel her eyes bulging from her head like she had thyroid disease.

  Even though there was about fifteen feet between them, she could smell the woman’s peachy perfume, and it added to the sickness rising in her stomach. Her nerves were sloshing around like runny eggs in a frying pan, but she had to make herself speak.

  “Where’s Warren?”

  “Not home.”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “I was invited. Can’t say the same about you,” Blanche stood her ground with composure, and watching her with that smug I-got-your-man-look made Erica want to fly across the room and fight her. Last-day-of-school-style, when it didn’t matter how hard you beat a bitch’s ass because you couldn’t get suspended. Erica could already feel the thinness of the whore’s hair in her hands as she flung her around the room, knocking down furniture. She could hear the glass splattering and smell the blood, but shook the vision.

  Blanche tilted her head sideways, but she didn’t move to close her coat. Like Erica wanted to see her bony ass.

  “Look at you, standing there looking like a trailer whore. So tacky.”

  “That’s not what Warren said.”

  “So how come he’s not here?”

  “That’s none of your concern. Not anymore right? Don’t hate, girlfriend.”

  Did she just say girlfriend? “Makes sense. Hoes are excellent on the rebound.”

  “I’m not going to take too many more of your hoes,” Blanche’s tongue slapped against the roof of her mouth, and Erica detected a little lower east side New York in her, but she wasn’t scared. After all she had been through, Blanche could pull a gun on Erica and she wouldn’t even flinch.

  Erica took three long strides and shortened the space between them. “Where is he?” she demanded.

  “Why? He’s so done with you.”

  “Really? Is that why you’re standing there looking like a video vixen trying to seduce him?” The walkway wasn’t that long, and she had gotten close enough to see the nervousness cross Blanche’s hazel eyes. “I know Warren’s scent, and I don’t smell sex in the air.” Erica rolled her neck. “Looks a lot like rejection to me.”

  “Is there a message?” Blanche fumbled with her belt, as if she had just remembered her nakedness.

  “Yeah. Fuck you,” Erica shouted in Blanche’s face, and then turned on her kitten heels and walked out of the apartment.

  Erica’s tough girl act was stripping down fast, and she knew she couldn’t hold it together while waiting on the only elevator in the building, so she dipped into the stairway. On the sixth floor landing she started feeling winded, like a hammer was pounding against her chest. By the fifth floor, the tears were streaming, and at the top of the fourth she had to hold onto the banister for support. After three more steps, vomit shot from her mouth with such force she had to hold on for dear life. Her head was hot but her brows cold, and she was sweating like she had a fever. How could she have been so blind? Warren was messing with Blanche the whole time. Why else would she be sitting in his apartment half dressed? And buzzing around the office bringing him black coffee? The excuse Warren had given about them just sitting together at his father’s dinner was bullshit. He had invited Blanche when Erica couldn’t come. Probably screwed her in his car on the way home, that’s how the condom slipped.

  Erica’s bag fell from her hand and she dropped on the step right next to it. The smell of her regurgitated tuna sandwich was noxious, but she couldn’t go on. Her body had become like cement, too heavy for her to even curl into a ball and hide. It was really over. Dead and gone over. There was no way they could bounce back from this and no turning back after what she had witnessed.

  Hot damn.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Black Man Free

  Warren had spent twenty-four hours locked in the room with his mother’s spirit. As she was his first teacher, he trusted her and spent much of his life loving her more than anyone else. His pain had anchored him to the floor, so she knelt before Warren and brought him to his feet. Her vine-like hands held the rhythm of the beat, while she chanted in a language that he had never heard. Calling the confusion from his head and replacing it with pure beauty. As she pressed her fingertips to his ego, the power it held over him thinned and was replaced with the divine Light of his Spirit. Warren wept openly with his mother, until every ounce of moisture was drained from his body. Then she kissed strength into his third eye, throat, palms and soles of his feet while whispering, “My son, get up. God lives inside of you.” She said it three times, and as he rose to thank her, she curled through the room like a puff of smoke and vanished. Once she did, Warren became conscious of the outside world again, and the person trying to break his door down.

  It was James who called after Blanche arrived, inviting him to play a gig at “The Spot” in Arlington. Before he left home, Warren had anointed himself in frankincense, and the aromatic powers of the oil had him floating through the dark Virginia dive bar, like he was a weightless leaf. The college club was outfitted with wooden tables and a mixture of ladder-back chairs. A pool table sat in the corner on the right, with the platform stage taking up most of the space adjacent to the bar. The crowd was a blend of students seeking inexpensive beer and mature regulars who came to hear the music. James was always the first to arrive at a gig, and was on stage tightening his drums.

  “Black man,” he stood, wiping his hands on the front of his jeans, pulling Warren into a half handshake, half hug. “Fuck happened to your lip?”

  Warren touched the open wound, having forgotten that it was there. “Shedding,” he replied.

  “Well I hope you can still play,
because I have the mother of all gigs lined up.”

  Warren pulled up the piano stool. James was essentially the band’s manager.

  “I got a call from this promoter I know in New York. There’s a major showcase going down. A&Rs, record producers, anyone who’s anyone is going to be there,” James paused. “And I got us on the list to play.”

  “Say word,” Warren scratched his overgrown goatee.

  “We get to play one song, five minutes, original tune. Talk to me, brotha. You’re the best writer in the band. Tell me you’ve got something new.”

  Warren unfastened his trumpet case. Shoved in with his horn were sheets and sheets of new music. The songs had come to him so fast, that he had to scribble to keep up.

  “We might need to work on some of the arrangements,” Warren said, sorting the pages. Then he pointed to the notes while humming the highs and lows of the beat.

  James’ fingers started waving the way they did when he got excited, and when Warren sang out the finale, James slapped him five. “That’s it.”

  It was late when Warren walked through his front door, and he was relieved that there was no sign of Blanche or her lo mein. He had been thinking about Erica on the drive home, and now that he was standing in his doorway it was like he could smell her. Being locked away for so long with himself had made him sensitive. He knew it was weird, but Erica’s presence was suddenly so strong that he almost called her name. Once he flipped on the light the sensation passed, but he still missed her. A yearning had opened up and he had no idea how to quench it. Could their relationship be fixed? Warren wanted to see her, and the gig in New York proved to be his best opportunity.

  Still antsy from the drive, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, so he pulled his laptop from his briefcase. His lip had started to throb and his fingertips were sore, but the music was still on in his head. The song they were going to play at the showcase was called “Love Burdened Eyes,” and he had written it while thinking of Erica, and those wounded eyes she often turned on him at the end of their weekends. The song summed up the tug-of-war in their relationship and the constant battling that he felt, and he couldn’t wait to hear it full out with all the instruments doing their part.