by Will Blue
"And what do you think you are doing," Jackson asked as his friends got settled into the car.
"What's going on, Jay?" Paul was the first to address Jackson. In return, Jackson held out his fist and dapped him up. Jackson looked back to Mykel who was still fiddling with the stereo.
"Mykel?"
"It's Rihanna's new album. You heard it yet? It came out Tuesday."
"Naw. She got a new one? I can‘t keep up with that girl," Jackson responded as the album intro started.
"It's good, dude. It's all we have been listening to for the past few days," Paul shared enthusiastically.
"Wait, where is the alcohol? You been to the store yet?" Mykel looked around the car in search of the booze. Jackson started backing out the parking space.
"Yeah, it should be under your legs. And remember that you owe me some money for that Patron."
"Yeah, yeah. You ask for cups?" Mykel reached under his seat and retrieved the bag.
"They in there," Jackson said casually as he looked for his turn to get back on the interstate. Mykel pulled out the three cups. He got one out for Paul, put his between his legs, and placed Jackson's in the cup holder. He poured a generous amount of Patron in each one. Everyone grabbed their cup. Jackson once again kept his eyes out for the cops. A toast was made for the night and they all drank their shots. It took Mykel two gulps to get his down, but Paul and Jackson sent theirs back with ease and were already ready for more. Mykel played bartender during the ride.
The club they picked for the night had two sections. When you first walked in and got past the metal detector, there was a bar immediately in front of you and a few steps away was the first dance floor. They played a little of everything in there. For most, it was just a walkway to the next room which was much bigger. That second room was devoted to hip hop. In there, club goers had the option of staying downstairs on the dance floor or travel upstairs to chill on the balcony area with your drink. The club had five bar areas total with three of them being located in the hip hop spot.
Jackson was troubled by the musical selection being played when they first walked in. He looked back at Paul and Mykel and they looked back like there was nothing wrong.
"They are playing Kirk Franklin's Lookin' For You? Are you serious?"
"What? I like this song." Mykel sang along with the words.
"Yeah, I do too, but they are playing it in the club!"
"Well if you can't grind to Jesus what can you do?" Paul joked. Jackson was too disturbed to laugh although he did get the joke.
"Oh, I am going to need a drink." Jackson made his way to the bar. On the wall, he eyed a chalk board which highlighted the bartender's specialty drinks and their prices. He located his favorite drink, a Fucked Up.
"What can I get you?" The very sexy bartender leaned forward so that he could be heard over the music.
"Can I get three Fu… F'd Ups?" Jackson caught himself from saying the drinks true name.
"Three Fucked Ups?"
"No!" Jackson blurted out. "You can't cuss when they playing gospel music!"
"But you can drink, huh?" The bartender flashed a killer smile while he grabbed three plastic cups and filled them with ice.
"Hey! Everything in moderation. That is what the good book says, don't it." Jackson reached for his wallet so that he could have his money ready by the time the bartender was finished with the drinks.
"Well, I don't exactly recall what it says, but ordering three Fucked, I mean F'd Ups, don't exactly scream moderation now do it?" He pushed the finished drinks forward as Jackson was about to hand him his cash. The bartender put his hand up and rejected the money.
"No charge, homey. Just this once, but don't tell nobody. You do have to give me your number and make sure you stop back around here before you leave."
"My number? In exchange for three drinks?" Jackson wanted to seem as if he was going to give the bartender a hard time about it, but he wasn't buying it. He grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket to save the number. Jackson recited his number and learned the bartender's name was Tracy. He took a sip from his drink and found out that Tracy had made them very strong. He pulled out a ten dollar bill to tip him. Promises were made to come back through before he joined his friends.
Jackson passed them both a drink. They seemed to not have noticed the scene at the bar. Jackson spotted Alonzo right away when he entered the through the doors of the hip hop room. He scanned the immediate area that he was in to see if Sherrod was around. He was nowhere to be found. Jackson made a mental note to ask him about that later, but for now he was gonna dance!
Chapter 6
"Could someone please make the room stop spinning," Jackson requested as he walked into Paul and Mykel’s kitchen. They seemed to be fairing much better than he was. Jackson could not remember much from the club the previous night. He could recall the sexy bartender and asking Alonzo where Sherrod was. Apparently, the gay club was not the happening spot for a brother on the down low. But past all that, Jackson's memory was hazy. That Jamie Foxx song rang true. He had one too many drinks!
"Wassup sleepyhead?" Paul said immediately going into one of the kitchen cabinets. Amongst the collection of hot teas, honey, and sinus medicine, he pulled out a bottle of Tylenol. He tapped two pills into his hand and retrieved a glass of tap water. Jackson eyed the pills as a means of redemption. He gladly took them off of Paul's hands.
"Were yall going to wake me up anytime soon?" Jackson stumbled into an empty chair. He laid his head in his hands. Boy, was his head hurting. Strange thing was that he barely ever got a hangover from drinking. He must have been mixing light and dark liquor big time.
"It's only one o'clock and you ain't got to be to work until five. I should know because I was debating whether I should catch a ride from you," said Mykel. The bowl of Apple Jacks in front of him had not stopped him from talking even if he was speaking with his mouth full.
Jackson scratched an itch that was bugging him on his upper thigh. It felt good although it did not alleviate the problem. The roughness against his bare skin reminded him that he needed to clip his nails ASAP. That's when it occurred to him that he was wearing only his boxers and undershirt. He did not remember disrobing. Here was another thing that he had blocked out.
"Ummm, guys. Where are my clothes?"
"Jay, you want some Apple Jacks or Frosted Flakes?" Paul asked avoiding the question as he and Mykel looked at each other with a knowing look.
"You heard me, hoe. Where my shit at?"
"You got a little sick last night," Mykel responded sounding like a mother talking to her seven year old. "It was no problem though. We washed your clothes and they are hanging up in my room. I just got them out of the dryer like an hour ago."
"I threw up?" Jackson had never felt so embarrassed in his life. Well, that was a lie. There was that time that he fell of the rock climbing wall in tenth grade. There was no reason that Ahmad Taylor had to witness that blunder. Why, oh why had he fallen in front of his crush/ captain of the football and basketball team? They had to call the paramedics.
"No, actually, it was more like…" Paul fished for words to make the situation sound better. He saw the flushed look of Jackson's face. He tried to help it, but there was no use. "Yeah, you were praising the porcelain gods for a good minute. You ran to the bathroom the minute we got home."
"How the hell did I get that messed up?" Jackson could taste the alcohol on his tongue. He couldn't tell what liquor was most prominent on his pallet.
"All we know is that you kept going over to the bar in the front. You and the bartender were getting real cool and he was giving you drinks all night. They were free but you were tipping him like crazy. Ol' boy had to come out with fifty dollars from you alone."
Jackson could not remember the bartender's name at the time, but he did know one thing. He had probably messed things up with him. Or maybe he had just given the dude exactly what he wanted. Perhaps his hustle was to get folk so liquored up with drinks that t
hey tip him extra. Jackson was familiar with the hustle. He had used similar methods to get better tips at Bennigan's. Sometimes, he would find ways not to charge guests for stuff in hopes that they would notice and give him more money. Was that what had happened?
"Where is my car?"
"Oh, it is out front," Mykel assured him. "Paul drove home, but it was a task getting those keys away from you, boy. You was about to start making a scene outside the club."
"Enough!" Jackson responded loudly, but soon regretted it when his aching head started vibrating with pain. He felt light headed for a second, but only for a second. He did not want to hear anything else about last night. Obviously, he had acted like a donkey. What further embarrassment could come through this conversation? Had he stripped in the middle of the club and shook his tambourine on the dance floor?
"You cool?" Paul looked with concern as Jackson got up and stumbled towards Mykel's room. Minutes later, Jackson came out fully dressed.
"I am about to be out. Where are my keys?"
"Let me go with you. Hold up, I will be right back." Mykel scurried back to his room to get dressed as well. Jackson gave a puzzled look to Paul who shrugged his shoulders in response.
"I am okay to drive, you know," Jackson called back.
"Yeah, but you owe me a couple of burned CDs, remember? I might as well go now with you to get them or else I will never get them. You know how you are."
"Well, you know that copying CDs is what is killing the music industry."
"Uh huh. Save the sermon for someone else," Mykel said emerging from his bedroom wearing a red and black hoodie with black jeans.
By the time that they got to Jackson's apartment, it was almost two o'clock. Jackson had stopped to get some real substance at McDonald's rather than some cereal. The greasy food seemed to soak up some of the alcohol. Or at least that was what Jackson's mind wanted to believe. To himself, Jackson made a resolution to not drink for a while. However, when he laid eyes on the condition of his apartment, he realized that he may have spoken too soon. All of a sudden, he craved an intoxicating beverage to deal with this shit.
His place was all in shambles. As soon as he walked in the back door, he saw soda and juice containers mixed with empty liquor bottles scattered on the kitchen counter. Spots of red, purple, and brown stained the wooden countertop. To his left, a trash bag laid carelessly on the side of the waste can with its contents falling on the linoleum tiles. The living room was no better. Alonzo’s stereo was still on blasting. The music was adding to Jackson's headache. He quickly set forth to cut it off once he got over the shock of the kitchen. All over the living room floor were cups of melted ice, liquor, or mixture of the two. Jackson counted twelve without even realizing. Mykel started to pick some of the items up but Jackson stopped him. There was only one person that should be held accountable for cleaning up this mess and that was Alonzo.
Jackson heatedly banged on Alonzo's locked bedroom door. The sounds of creaking floors and shuffling of feet let Jackson know that Alonzo was approaching the door. When he did open up, Alonzo was looking about how bad Jackson had been feeling that morning. His smooth chocolate skin looked pale. His eyes, normally full of enthusiasm and life, carried bags underneath them big enough to fit the troubles of the world. Alonzo's lips were crusted over and not the least inviting. Despite all of this, Jackson was not the least bit sympathetic. Had he been like this when the apartment had gotten trashed? No! He had probably been taking body shots off some Puerto Rican papi named Alejandro.
"What the fuck you do last night to have the place look like hell?" Alonzo wiped the sleep out of his eyes and tried to focus on the two men that stood in front of him. Mykel stood to the side not wanting to get involved.
"Yo, Jackson. I will check you later." Mykel could tell an argument was about to ensue. "I am glad I brought my bus pass," he said more to himself as he walked back to the door that they had entered into.
"What? It was just a little after party." Alonzo seemed not to see the big deal. With Mykel gone, Jackson started to lay into Alonzo, putting all the cards on the table.
"Yeah. And I know how your after parties end. Who you end up in here with? Or his he still in there?" Jackson tried to look past Alonzo and to his bed, but Alonzo had not let the door open that wide. Jackson couldn't see anything.
"Nobody," Alonzo said as he closed the bedroom door a little more. "I will clean it all up later. I promise." Alonzo closed the door and locked it before Jackson could respond. Maybe that was a good thing. All Jackson wanted to do anyway was go back to sleep. He decided that he would call the day off from work. He knew that he could get away with it just this once.
Jackson was able to drift off the sleep within the next thirty minutes. He did not let no one or nothing wake him up. He had some anger to sleep off.
Chapter 7
Sometimes the best thing to do is not to do anything. That is what Jackson was thinking to himself. It was his day off and he planned on doing nothing. He was not going to try to hit up Mykel and see what he was doing. Although he should, he wasn’t even going to try to busy himself with things that he had long put off such as doing laundry. And at the top of the list, he most certainly was not going to clean up that mess that Alonzo had made. The apartment was still looking a mess from that after party. Actually, it was now worse. Alonzo had done some cooking and left a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. That shit could sit and fester for all Jackson cared. Alonzo would get the message and clean that shit sooner or later.
Jackson left the confines of his bedroom to search the kitchen for a snack. Some cereal could satisfy his hunger. He found a bowl that had not been dirtied up quite yet, but he ended up having to wash off a spoon to eat with. As he poured the milk over his Honey Bunches of Oats, he heard his cell phone ring. Jackson high stepped it back to his room to answer the phone before the caller hung up. The number on the screen wasn't a familiar one. In fact, Jackson did not even know what city or state the caller's area code belonged to. He almost did not push the talk button in fear that it could be a pesky bill collector. However, his curiosity won out and he answered.
"Hello," he said positioning himself back comfortable on his bed with the bowl of cereal in hand.
"Damn, I was about to hang up. What's good with you?" The voice did not sound familiar at all to Jackson. The man had an accent that was unmistakably southern. It was not overbearing, but even the most casual ear could still pick up on it.
"I am sorry, but who is this?"
"Oh, damn. You forgot me that soon, man? It's Tracy. We met at the club the other night. You gave me your number."
"The bartender?"
"Naw, one of the other niggas you gave your number to," Tracy said jokingly. "Hold up, let me stop cause you might have been giving other dudes your number and I don't want to get my feelings hurt."
"And how would you get your feelings hurt?"
"I am just saying. I want the chance to get to know you, but I rather not have to wrestle other niggas to do it."
"Oh, so you don't like to fight for things you want?" Jackson took a spoonful of cereal in too his mouth. He held the mouthpiece of the phone in such a way that the munching and crunching of food wouldn't be heard.
"I have to get to know you better to even see if you are worth fighting for. Although you probably are worth it, I can't just jump into wars over everybody. And that's even if they are a cutie such as yourself." Jackson was pleased with Tracy's answer and loved the compliment that was thrown in at the end. He chuckled when he thought about how easy he was to be won over. The right flattery could get you almost anywhere.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing. So what are you up to?"
"Shit, that is what I am trying to find out from you. I wanted to know if you were free anytime soon. Let me show you a good time."
"A good time?" Jackson imagined what that phrase could mean. A quick romp in the sheets or some head in a parked car. What type of stuff was this dude on?
>
"Yeah, a good time, dude. Dinner and maybe a movie all of which would be my treat. Just an innocent night out while I try to figure out where your head is at and whether I should break out that fighting gear and camouflage."
"Well tonight could be cool." Jackson perked up at the thought of having a date. They decided that Tracy would meet over to Jackson's at around 8 o'clock and then they would do all planning from there. Nothing was set in stone. They would just go with the flow.
When Jackson hung up the phone, he cut off the television and put on some music that matched his now elevated mood. He danced around his room to some Usher as he decided what he should wear. He had four hours to get ready which was more than enough time. Or at least that is what Jackson thought at first. His room as well as the rest of the apartment was a mess. There was no way that he could let Tracy see any of that. He would be so ashamed to have anyone think that he liked to live in such disorder.