Crave

by Laurie Jean Cannady

  At first, I wouldn’t even allow myself to want him. He was too much beauty for my sixteen years. So, I chastised myself for not being woman enough to have someone like him as my man. That was until awards day when I got off the bus as Momma in a royal blue dress with gold buttons, patent leather shoes, and legs for days. I knew I was shining brighter because the sun didn’t seem so bright, and I knew I was cooler because the breeze wasn’t its usual cool and I, who had always been invisible, became flesh, came into focus right in front of Pat’s eyes.

  The smile that always spread across his face evolved into a look of surprise, awe even, as he dismounted the wooden fence, stood in the middle of the walkway, and said, “You are so beautiful. What is your name?” I stopped, unsure of what to do. The clock had struck midnight and I was no longer Momma. I remembered I was a pumpkin. While I didn’t know what to say, my friend Toy knew exactly what she wanted to say. She knew Pat in a different way than I did because she lived in the Ida Barbour projects where Pat was known for being a stick-up kid.

  “You better get out of our way,” she said. “You got my cousin hurt.” Her words definitely weren’t in line with my thoughts. Pat’s smile quickly bent into a frown and he looked as if he were about to walk away. I wanted to be loyal to my friend, but the months of watching him, forcing myself not to want him, tsunamied over me in that moment. Before she could finish telling Pat off, I interrupted.

  “Girl, you crazy. Pat, my name is Laurie.” I thrust my hand out to his, and looked into his toffee eyes. Pat could have asked me to run away from home or rob a bank. I would have been more than happy to do both because he had chosen me. I had already accepted that the person who does the choosing retains all the power and the chosen relinquishes it. I was satisfied with the act of being wanted, which was the only thing I’d chosen up to that point.

  Toy, along with the others riding the bus, disappeared. “Where did you come from? Do you live here?” he asked.

  Since I’d been watching him for the last three months, I tried not to laugh. I pointed at my house, and said, “I’ve lived here for years, too many years.”

  “Can I come and see you sometime?” he asked, as he graced me with white teeth peeking through smiling lips.

  You can move in if you like, I thought, but I just smiled and nodded.

  “You’ll be seeing me,” he said.

  Pat had given me enough in that encounter to make me feel as if I could accomplish anything. If I never saw him again, that moment would have been etched into my reality, but he did come around, often flashing that smile, holding my hand, telling me how beautiful I was. We often sat on my porch, in between his dealings with others. I, the dutiful girlfriend, waited while he conducted business, and welcomed him home, as if he’d just completed a long day at work.

  Everybody in Lincoln Park, men, women, and children, loved Pat, wanted a piece of him, but I believed he only belonged to me. He wasn’t the typical drug dealer, loud, cursing across the park, leaving forties against buildings, pissing in alleys. He was refined, holding bags for older tenants walking from the corner store, giving change to kids who wanted to visit the candy lady. He talked to every person as if he or she were the most important person in the world, and we all appreciated his generosity. In another life, I imagined he would have been a politician, a psychiatrist even, because he knew how to make people feel like they were as special as he was.

  I was certain there were other girls in other neighborhoods receiving the same affection. Some didn’t even live in the projects, so I believed they had an advantage over me. I’d heard of his wife, who’d been the first to capture his heart in high school. They’d married young and produced three children that were as beautiful as Pat. His wife, according to Pat, had broken his heart and had taken everything except the tattoo of her name on his body, one he intended to cover with the words, “Screw you.” Then there was Daphne, a girl who lived in Cavalier Manor that had loved Pat since they were kids. I’d heard she showered him with gifts and put up with all sorts of crazy just to be with him. I rationalized Pat’s love for his wife as necessary since they’d built a life together with children and I decided his relationship with Daphne was one of convenience, since she bought him gifts, but I bought him nothing. I believed I had nothing to offer, not even sex since we had no place to be alone. I didn’t care if Pat had other women. He spent most of his time in Lincoln Park, which meant he was with me, which also meant he’d chosen me again and again. While with Pat, I forgot I wanted to escape Lincoln Park. Leaving didn’t seem as important as being with him. I questioned my decision to go into the Army. That had been pre-Pat and nothing pre-Pat had significance.

  I had a brief conversation with Momma about leaving. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to go,” I said. She looked at me with more determination than I’d seen in her in a while, especially since Mr. Bryan had been sucking life out of her.

  “You getting out of here,” she said, and that was the end of that conversation.

  Pat was the tornado pulling me into Lincoln Park’s center, pushing me to the dirt-filled lawns, making me eat the grit of my former aspirations of leaving, but I didn’t care. Nothing in the Park had felt good until I’d met him. I convinced myself a bit of goodness in a sea of bad could be better than a lot of good somewhere else. Pat was the prettiest thing I’d ever had, the best that had ever belonged to me, and he wanted me. He saw value in me and that meant I was worth something.

  Patty Change

  Things soon began to change with Pat. It wasn’t as drastic as the change with Greg or as subtle as the one with Sanford. It was more like the bend atop a hill, where you can’t be sure there’s more road until you get to the other side. Although Pat spent most of his time in Lincoln Park, he wasn’t spending as much of it with me. I wasn’t worried he was with another girl or that he’d lost interest. I could see him from my window or my porch. He wasn’t physically away, just mentally too fast, too anxious to get close to.

  I could still feel him when he entered Lincoln Park, but even that connection was waning. Some days we would be sitting on my porch and the signals between us would be in a constant state of avoidance. It was as if our satellites had begun sending different messages and neither of us knew how to unscramble them. He still wore the same smile, but not as frequently. He still had the same walk, but something seemed to be weighing him down, making him heavier, when flight had been his best attribute.

  His behavior became more erratic, too. It was as if he couldn’t sit still. He had to be moving or talking in order to be alive. He suffered from asthma, but he said he hadn’t had a bad attack since he’d been a kid. This is what he said as I heard his lungs squealing like a kitten, saw his chest falling and rising with no real rhythm, witnessed the corners of his mouth frothing. “The inhaler doesn’t work for me,” he said. “I have to use the Primatene pills.”

  “Do you have any money, so I can get you some pills?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t make any today.” His words should have alarmed me since Pat spent every day in Lincoln Park “making money,” but I wasn’t astute enough in that moment. My focus was on making him feel better.

  “Well, why don’t you ask Ms. Verna Mae if she’ll let you get some pills today and you can pay her when you get the money?”

  “She won’t do it. She doesn’t like me,” he panted, struggling for air. I thought everyone loved Pat, but it seemed Ms. Verna Mae was immune to his charm. That didn’t shock me too much. Ms. Verna Mae wasn’t known for being a sweetheart. In fact, I thought she was mean. She often sat on her porch, saying how grown I was and that I would be the next one pregnant. When I went to the corner store, I tried to make sure I knew exactly what I was getting because a second’s hesitation would make her yell, “You need to buy something or get out of the store.” I didn’t know what I was thinking as I ran across the street, ready to ask Ms. Verna Mae to give something worth forty dollars. I expected her to embarrass me, to say get your “hot momma�
� to buy it for you, so I braced myself as I walked through the door.

  The normal ding of the bell greeted me because Ms. Verna Mae did not. There was someone up at the front of the store, so I waited until he left. I practiced my breathing, imitating the wheeze I’d heard in Pat’s chest. Once the bell dinged again, I made my way to Ms. Verna Mae empty-handed. She squinted her eyes and twisted her lips. Even though I couldn’t see behind the counter, I could tell by the bounce of her body she was impatiently tapping one of her feet. “Hi, Ms. Verna Mae,” I said.

  “Yes,” she replied with salt.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Hmmm hmmm,” she said as she placed her hand on her hip. I wanted to have something in my hand too, my hip, my other hand, something that would stop the sweat dripping from my palms.

  “My momma’s not home and I don’t feel well,” I said, exhaling, hoping she could hear the congestion I’d conjured in my chest. “I’m having an asthma attack and I don’t have any more medicine.”

  “What do you need, Laurie?” she asked

  I was surprised she knew my name. She’d only referred to me as that hot-in-the-pants girl who had boys coming to her house when her momma was holed up with her man.

  “Do you have any Primatene Mist pills? I can’t breathe and I don’t know when my momma’s coming home.” The lie came out so effortlessly it shocked me. I’d lied and not even for myself. Even worse, I’d lied on Momma. I knew people in Lincoln Park saw Momma as a neglectful woman who left her kids alone, one who’d likely been raped because she walked around thinking she was cute. I’d added ammunition to their charges. I’d given another reason for the disapproving eyes that followed her. For that, I am still ashamed.

  But then, as I looked up at Ms. Verna Mae, as she looked down at me, that didn’t matter. What mattered was my man and what he needed. I had pushed Momma to the wayside. As I waited for a response, the shell of Ms. Verna Mae’s face cracked, and I believe she saw me, not as I imagined I’d appeared before her, but as a child, not much different from her own children. “I’ll pay you back when I get my summer pay,” I began as she reached behind the counter and pulled up the green box with yellow wording.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said with a smile.

  “But, I can get the money to you . . .”

  “Go on, girl,” she ordered as she bagged the medicine and pushed the package toward me.

  “Thanks so much, Ms. Verna Mae,” I said as I exited the store.

  I ran to the side of my building where Pat stood, proud of the gift I had to give. Later that night, I thought about Ms. Verna Mae and the kindness she’d shown, even as I believed she disliked me. Maybe those eyes, as they followed me, as they followed Momma, told a different story from the one I’d been hearing. Maybe she wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined. Maybe none of them were.

  Soon after Pat’s asthma attack, he got sicker. By then I’d heard rumors he was using heroin, the drug he sold. Those rumors I could ignore, but I couldn’t overlook his nervousness, his red eyes, and mood swings. He was riding high one minute, all smiles and hugs. The next, I might say something that would prompt him to hold my hand tighter, longer, and press me against the wall of my porch, his raw, hot breath beating against my face. Then I could see him in the way his wife must have seen him, not so pretty at all. When he announced he was moving to Bristol, Tennessee, with his father, that his mom and dad both thought it best he leave Portsmouth, I was almost happy. That was until I realized he wasn’t just leaving Lincoln Park. He was leaving me.

  I cried uncontrollably when I first heard the news, and I tried to devise a plan that would allow us to stay together, but nothing worked. As the days grew into each other, and the life slipped out of him, I saw how tired he was. I saw something in him hadn’t been lost but replaced with an additive that was drying him up. I knew he needed to leave, so our last weekend together had to be special. We’d only been together one other time before, but I wanted to love him enough so he’d want to come back, so he’d find me again and we’d finish life together.

  Pat and Shawn, Mary’s boyfriend, picked us up together. I wasn’t sure of whose car we were in and I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with Pat. We rode to Virginia Beach, where Mary and I separated. She and Shawn went one way on the beach while Pat and I went the other.

  Pat spread the blanket he carried on the sand. Despite the wind rushing off the waves and the prickly sand beneath my feet, I grew warm when I sat on it. As Pat lay next to me, then on me, the waves, the stars, the grains of sand being sifted by my toes, all of those still, unliving things came alive. They danced with us and the waves clapped as we professed our love for one another. The stars shone down on us, making his caramel-colored eyes taupe, and his strong arms became mere silhouettes, barely visible in the moonlight. He held me so tightly I could barely hear his words, “I’m so sorry I have to go. We will be together again.” I believed him and prayed him speaking them would make them true.

  We lay on the sand together, watched the dark night crack under the pressure of day, just as I was cracking under the thoughts of minutes, hours, and days without him bouncing to my porch, smiling with his eyes, acting as distraction to what had before been unbearable.

  “I’ll send for you,” I said. “Wherever I go, I’ll send for you.”

  Pat stared into my eyes as he held me close. “And I’ll come,” he whispered. “I’ll come.”

  Months later, after I returned from basic training for Christmas break, I saw Pat. He’d come back to Portsmouth soon after I left because of a disagreement with his father. Although Lincoln Park and Portsmouth had not changed, we had, or maybe I had changed and that made him seem different to me. He wore the same charisma and handsome looks, but his normal glow had dimmed. His eyes didn’t seem as toffee when surrounded by red tint. Supple lips had gone dark and his long stride had slowed. Despite my knowing, I slept with Pat. As he lay on me, no longer fitting, no longer feeling like he once had, I thought about the difference months could make and the life, away, I was willing to surrender, just to have him with me. I still saw that beautiful man who had chosen me, the one I believed had increased my worth with his desire alone, the one meant to save me from Lincoln Park, from a life of wanting, even though he could not save himself.

  PURGE

  Mr. Lover Man

  After Pat left, I needed to be preoccupied, so I, along with my new best friend, Vel, gathered sets of guys we could date on any given night. One such set was Reggie and Randy. I’d been in school with Reggie and Randy since eighth grade, but I usually steered clear of both of them. Randy was known to be a player, and Reggie seemed madly in love with his girlfriend. I felt immense pride in the way they loved each other, with care and patience. In my mind, they were the Billy Dee Williams and Diana Ross of Wilson High, demonstrating what young black love was supposed to look like. I often thought of relationships like theirs while being battered by Sanford.

  Reggie had been in most of my classes during high school. Whenever I chose a seat, I made sure it wasn’t near him. As an adolescent, I didn’t understand my need to distance myself from him, so I told myself it was out of respect for his relationship and fear of Sanford. He’d never said or done anything hurtful to me, and in our Spanish class when we sang “Feliz Navidad,” he had the best drumming skills. But something was familiar about him that made me uncomfortable. So I stayed away until the summer day that found Vel and me sitting on my porch, waiting for something to happen.

  “I’m bored,” she said.

  “Me too,” I replied.

  “I’m gonna call Randy and see what he’s doing.”

  “All right, girl,” I said, willing to do anything in order to occupy my thoughts. Vel walked to the pay phone, talked for five minutes, and came back with a smile on her face.

  “He’s coming over,” she said.

  Good for you, I thought. Now I have to either be a third wheel or alone. My night wasn’t getting better.r />
  “And he’s bringing Reggie with him.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “Not for me. He has a girlfriend.”

  “Not anymore, and he said he likes you, girl. He was happy you were going to be here.”

  When they arrived, I sunk into the front seat of Reggie’s purple Legend and watched as brilliant colors danced around the dashboard. Shabba Ranks’ “Mr. Lover Man” blared through the speaker. The smell of newness emanating from the seat held me comfortably. I enjoyed riding in luxury I’d never known. Still, I sat as close to the door as I could, with my hand resting on the handle, ready to catapult if necessary.

  “Why are you sitting all the way over there?” he asked. “You scared?”

  I shook my head “no,” but remained glued to the door.

  Once we reached Virginia Beach, the road seemed to transform into a Christmas tree, weighted by lights. There were hundreds of cars, squirming along the street like lighting bugs trying to find darkness in a sea of light. There were lines of stores, lit up like bulbs, illuminating the streets with their glow. Suddenly, a sick feeling crept over me. What if we ran into Sanford? I didn’t really know Reggie, and if Sanford attacked, what would make him want to save me if I weren’t his? I saw Sanford on every corner, in car after car as we cruised Atlantic Avenue. Once we entered the room, the shadows disappeared.

  “I need something to help me relax,” I said.

  Reggie and Randy had come prepared. They pulled out bottles of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine, my and Vel’s drink of choice. I smiled at Vel, knowing she must have told them what to buy. Then, I didn’t feel so alone. I was with my best friend. I didn’t have to do anything at all with Reggie and we were in Virginia Beach in one of the most beautiful hotel suites I’d ever seen. A calm settled over me like a warm rag soothing irritated eyes. I took one glass after another, until the first bottle was empty. Then my belly began to churn. It felt as if my colon were wrapping itself around my heart. The more I drank, the greater the pain became.