Any Way the Wind Blows

by E. Lynn Harris

  When the server lifted the steel covers off the entrée, I realized Wylie had had one cocktail too many. His voice didn’t sound like the professional voice I heard when he was trying to impress people with his education and wealth.

  “Oh my, my, look who’s here. Miss Chicken! She is everywhere. I mean, you can be at the White House having dinner with the president and who’s there … Miss Chicken. Honey, you can fry her, bake her, grill her, boil her, wing her, poach her. I mean, the bitch is fierce. You can be at yo auntie’s house and who’s there? Miss Chicken … there she is. Fried golden brown. You want to lose weight? Who you gonna call? Miss Chicken, boiled without her crispy coat, will do the trick. You want to impress your trade into thinking they getting something fancy, then throw some extra spices on Miss Chicken and maybe a can of concentrated orange or pineapple juice and she becomes a delicacy. Now, Miss Fish, you can’t take her everywhere. Miss Chicken is the one. When was the last time you ate some boiled fish? I don’t think so. And nobody beats that bitch Miss Chicken when she’s fried. I mean, when was the last time you seen Church’s fried fish? So, honey, let’s give praise where praise is due,” Wylie said as he raised his glass. “To Miss Chicken, the fiercest fowl around.”

  Many of the guests couldn’t clink their glasses because everyone was holding on to their sides with laughter.

  “To Miss Chicken,” I said when I finally stopped laughing myself.

  Calls Come … but Not the One

  The inductees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame were announced today, and the name John Basil Henderson was not among them. I’m not sad or even slightly disappointed. At least that’s what I tell myself. I’ve had to remind myself that it’s rare when someone is selected the first time they’re nominated. I decided not to go to the Super Bowl in Tampa Bay, because I was sure all my associates would be telling me how sorry they were I didn’t make the hall. The truth is they’d be playa-hating if I had been selected the first time out.

  If I’m feeling anything, it’s what I felt when I was a sophomore at Raines High School in Jacksonville, Florida. Although I had broken the city’s records for receiving yards during my first year, I didn’t make any of the all-state or all-district teams because many of the coaches and reporters who voted for the teams thought I was too young. They didn’t want me to get a big head.

  Right now I feel out of sorts. The same way I felt the first season after I left the NFL. It was the first time since I was eight years old when fall arrived and I wasn’t strapping on a helmet.

  Not getting the call from the hall has its benefits. I did get phone calls from the two most important men in my life. Right after the inductees were announced on the Internet I got a call from my Pops, who tried to cheer me up just like he had during my sophomore year. I think he was really disappointed, but he assured me I’d make it into the Hall one day. And later that evening I got a call from my nephew, Cade. He didn’t call to talk about the Hall of Fame, but to tell me he scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter of his Pop Warner championship game. As he got off the phone he told me how much he loved me and it almost brought me to tears, just like when I watched the movie Remember the Titans. But I have a rule: Tears are the ultimate sign of weakness, and I am not weak.

  When I was getting ready for bed, I got another call from another, kinda, sorta important man in my life. I picked up the phone immediately when I saw the Seattle area code.

  “Is this who I think it is?” I said.

  “If it’s Raymond Tyler.”

  “’Sup, dude? How ya living?” I asked as I lay back on my bed, shirtless, with just my slacks and socks on.

  “Just checking in with you,” Raymond said.

  “So you heard I didn’t get in, huh?”

  “Yep. You all right? I know how important it was for you,” Raymond said.

  “How’d you find out? It hasn’t hit the papers yet,” I said.

  “My little bro told me he saw the list on the Internet. Kirby’s down in Tampa for the Super Bowl.”

  “How is your little bro doing?”

  “He’s doing good. Had a great season, and getting ready for the arrival of his first child,” Raymond said proudly.

  “So you’re going to be an uncle, huh? Are you trying to be like me?” I joked.

  “You know that’s what I do when I wake up every morning. Think of ways I can be like my guy, Basil Henderson,” Raymond said.

  “True dat,” I said.

  “True,” Raymond said.

  “Who did he marry?”

  “A young lady he met on his first day in San Diego. She’s the real estate agent who sold him his house,” Raymond said.

  “What happened to the Asian chick he was dating?”

  “They broke up a couple of years ago. I can’t tell you how happy my Pops is that he married a beautiful black woman. I keep telling my Pops he’s a racist, but he tells me black people can’t be racist.” Raymond laughed.

  “I know a lot of black racists. But most of them hate their own,” I said as I smiled to myself when I heard Raymond refer to his father as “Pops.” Raymond and I were alike in more ways than I wanted to admit to myself.

  “I hear you. I hope I hang around long enough to see all these isms gone for good,” Raymond said.

  The conversation was getting a little deep for me, so I tried to change the tone and asked, “So how ya doing? It’s been almost a year since we got to hang out in ATL at the Super Bowl.” I had taken Raymond to the Super Bowl last year, and despite an ice-covered Atlanta, we had a good time. Just as friends, two men who enjoyed each other’s company. Raymond had insisted on paying for his own and separate hotel room, even though I had a nine-hundred-square-foot suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Buckhead. I guess he didn’t want to tempt himself, since I loved being butt-ass naked and did it every chance I got.

  “All is cool on the home front,” Raymond said. I guess he was trying to tell me that he and old boy were still going strong.

  “That’s cool.”

  “How about you? I know you got somebody up there to help console you,” Raymond said.

  “Naw, I just broke up with this honey I was seeing. You remember the flight attendant, Rosa? The one who backed out of the Super Bowl trip at the last minute? She’s the reason you got to go,” I laughed.

  “Oh yeah, Rosa. Make sure you thank her again, but I know you got some pretty boy on the side,” Raymond teased.

  “You’re the only pretty boy I would keep on the side, and you’ve made it perfectly clear I can’t have you.”

  “So how is your father?” Raymond asked. I guess he wasn’t going to respond to my flirting.

  “He’s cool, though I think he already had his suit picked out for the ceremony, so I feel bad not making it into the Hall.”

  “That’s okay, next year he’ll get the chance to wear it,” Raymond said reassuringly. His support made not making the Hall a little easier to take. At least for tonight, I thought as I thanked Raymond and said good night.

  • • •

  I was unable to sleep, so I got up and went online. I was secretly hoping there was some late-breaking news and that by some fluke I’d actually made the Hall of Fame. I logged on and checked a few sports sites. Nothing.

  I checked my messages and saw there was a new one from SWALZ. I opened it and began to read: Don’t you know they don’t let closeted bisexuals into the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Not on the first time. Not anytime soon.

  I started to write back a nasty response but still felt it was best just to ignore this asshole, so I clicked off the Net and climbed into bed and tried to give sleep another shot.

  • • •

  This is a real nice building,” Sallye said as I opened the door.

  “It’s all right,” I said as I handed my keys to the doorman and asked him to take my car to the garage.

  While we rode the elevator Sallye Morgan, a young lady I had just met a few hours before, looked around like a little girl riding an eleva
tor for the first time.

  “I must say, Basil, you got it going on. Nice car and great building. What did you say you did for a living?”

  “I didn’t say, but I have my own business.”

  The elevator reached my floor, and I held my hand out so Sallye could walk out first and I could get another view of this tall and beautiful brown-skinned sister I had met at Lola’s having drinks with some of her girlfriends. Sallye had saved me in a way. I was there checking out the new talent in town and drowning my Hall-reject sorrow in a few drinks, but all I saw were a lot of women dressed like they were in an old Mary J. Blige video, wearing fake leather, knee-high boots, fake hair and colored contacts. I wanted to yell out, “Sistas, get a clue. Even Mary doesn’t dress like that!”

  A couple of days after I’d sent Rosa packing, I met a sister at Chaz & Wilsons on West Seventy-ninth between Columbus and Amsterdam, a club where a lot of the ball players go when they are in town for games. I spotted someone who looked good, but when we were getting ready to leave I gave her the weave test. I casually put my arm around her so I could check out her hair. It was long, but it was too scratchy to be the real deal. I decided to give the sister a chance, so I asked her if it was a weave, and she denied it. I then warned her by saying, “Sweetheart, if I get you home and there is anything fake about you, I’m sending you home quicker than you can say ‘gold-diggers r us.’” She looked at me and started swearing at me like she had Tourette’s syndrome. I left that bitch standing outside the club looking stupid and cussing at the wind.

  Sallye and her friends were different. They were dressed in blazers and silk blouses. As I was going over to buy the ladies a drink, a woman walked up behind me and called out my name.

  I turned around and asked, “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Mandy. Remember? I work with Rosa.”

  “Oh yeah, excuse me I got to run,” I said. The last thing I wanted to do was talk with one of Rosa’s good friends.

  “You should call Rosa,” Mandy said.

  I started to ask why, but thought quickly, What does it matter? I had more immediate tasks to take care of, like finding some new pussy tonight. Rosa and Mandy were not going to get in my way.

  When Sallye walked into my apartment she immediately dropped her coat, and I could see the profile of her breasts through her silky plum-colored blouse. Her hips and ass looked delicious in the tight knee-length black skirt she was wearing. I picked up her coat, took mine off quickly, then grabbed her wrist and spun her around toward me.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this since I first saw you,” I said as I kissed her lips and released the gold clip that was holding her long dark hair in an elegant ponytail. Her skin was the color of walnuts and caramel mixed together.

  Sallye kissed me back like it had been a while, and I was feeling like I was getting ready to break the bank. I began to unbutton her blouse, and I felt her hard nipples through her sheer bra.

  “Wait a minute,” Sallye said as she moved my hand and pulled back.

  “Am I moving too fast?”

  “I need to ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Engaged?”

  “No, now come on over here and let me get started,” I said.

  “One more question,” Sallye said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Are you gay or bisexual?”

  I tried to keep my cool. “Damn, baby, if you thought that was the case, then why did you come home with me?”

  “My girlfriends and I always ask these questions. You don’t look or act gay or bi, but answer the question,” Sallye said as she stopped unzipping her skirt from the back.

  “No, I’m not either one of those things,” I said confidently. As far as I was concerned, that was the truth. I wasn’t gay or bisexual. She didn’t ask if I was on the down low and I didn’t tell her. Besides, she wasn’t looking at my lips but at the bulge in my pants. I could have said “hell yeah” and Sallye would have heard “hell no.”

  I dropped my pants so she could see what she was staring at and my jimmie sprang out like the tongue of a snake.

  “You are so phine,” Sallye said as she slipped off her skirt to reveal violet see-through panties. I slowly removed her blouse and I could see that her breasts were small, but round and plump, not like the silicone-enhanced breasts I ran across from time to time.

  I picked Sallye up and moved her to the sofa and laid her down. I began kissing her legs, starting with her knee. Her skin was soft and moist and I could smell the subtle fragrance of perfume.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Sallye asked with eagerness in her voice. As I stopped exploring her, I looked at Sallye and said, “Baby girl, I’m going to eat you like you’re a banana split with three scoops of chocolate.” I then slowly removed her panties and sank my tongue between her legs.

  An hour later and a couple of trips to paradise for both Sallye and myself, I got up from the sofa and went into the bathroom and removed the condom. I took a warm and damp washcloth and wiped myself off, then pulled a bath-sized towel out and walked back into the living area where a nude and smiling Sallye welcomed me.

  “That was wonderful,” Sallye said.

  “I know.”

  “When can I see you again?”

  “What?”

  “When can I see you? I mean like a date?”

  “Sallye, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re young so listen carefully. If a man brings you to his house, doesn’t offer you a drink and doesn’t play soft jazz or R and B while he’s sexing you, that’s not a good sign. You don’t fuck a man real good a couple hours after you meet him and expect to see him more than once.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m looking for the mother of my children and you’ve just been disqualified for spreading your legs too quickly. The bathroom is that way,” I said as I tossed her a towel and pointed toward a slightly open door off the hallway.

  Yancey’s First Family Dinner

  My flight to New York had been delayed. But what else was new? I was sipping a club soda when I remembered the early-morning phone call I’d received a couple days before, which had frightened and annoyed me. Even though I was convinced it was a prank call, I wanted to make sure.

  I pulled my cell phone out of my bag and dialed one of my ex-boyfriends. Derrick and I had dated seriously in college, but the birth of a child had sent us in different directions. About a year and a half ago, I discovered Derrick was actually raising the child I had given up for adoption. It was a big shock to me, and I was convinced that if the news got out it would end my career, but thankfully Derrick and I had come to an agreement. I needed to be certain he wasn’t having a change of heart.

  Derrick picked up his office phone after a couple of rings.

  “Derrick speaking.”

  “Derrick. This is Yancey. Is everything all right?” I asked.

  “Everything’s fine. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Everything is going great and getting ready to get better. I just wanted to make sure you’ve been getting my packages,” I said as I looked at the monitor and saw that my flight was getting ready to board.

  “Yes, I’ve been getting them, and we’re doing fine. I just opened up a savings account, and that’s where the money is going. Is that why you’re calling?”

  “Yes,” I said. I decided not to mention the weird wake-up call I’d received because I knew he would think I was giving him drama.

  “Are you still in California?”

  “Yep, but I’m on my way to New York right now.”

  “Have a safe flight.”

  “Thanks. Gotta run,” I said, but then I asked quickly, “How’s your mother?” wondering if Charlesetta had anything to do with the call.

  “Why do you ask? You two aren’t friendly,” Derrick said.

  “Jus
t wondering. Okay, bye,” I said, and just when I was getting ready to push the End button, Derrick said, “And Madison is doing fine, too.”

  • • •

  When I got home to New York, I’d planned to just relax my first night back, and get reacquainted with Windsor. Instead, I walked into an Adams family reunion.

  “Yancey! Welcome home. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “I’ve been busy and I wanted to surprise you,” I said. Well, I was the one who was surprised. I loved Windsor, but what were all these people doing in my house? There was an older man who looked vaguely familiar sitting in the living room watching Wheel of Fortune, and some crazy-looking older woman, with a bop in the step of her transparent orange-and-purple swirled heels, was bouncing around like she owned the place.

  “Oh, Yancey! This is my family. You remember my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, and this is my aunt, Toukie Wells, and my beloved fiancé, Wardell. Everyone, this is Yancey Harrington Braxton, now known as Yancey B!”

  Windsor’s family all said hello in one voice, which sounded like a choir warming up. Windsor’s parents had attended my engagement party. Wardell, the man Windsor was always talking about, was a little older than I thought he’d be, but as long as he was good to Windsor it didn’t matter to me. For a moment I thought I might have to find myself an older man, but then I remembered Malik and decided quickly I didn’t want to do that show again.

  Over the next hour, while Windsor was putting the finishing touches on her meal, I learned about the Adams family, Aunt Toukie and Wardell. Windsor’s parents were from Detroit, having migrated from Columbus, Georgia. Her father was old enough to retire but still drove a city bus. Windsor’s mother worked at a nursing home, and Aunt Toukie, who I learned had a fondness for tight clothes and Cadillacs, was a retired elementary school teacher and was the reason Windsor had decided to teach.

  Dr. Wardell Pope was a widower and father of two grown daughters. He taught sociology at the University of South Carolina. He’d met Windsor when he was a visiting professor at New York University and Windsor had audited his class. Now he was back teaching in Columbia and had proposed to Windsor right before he left. I was enjoying the chatter of the older people talking about things back in “the day,” but eventually the questions turned to me.