A Clean Up Man

by M. T. Pope

  All types of things were floating through my mind at that moment. I didn’t know what to do. The woman’s moaning on the screen was getting the best of me and I did something I never did before. I pulled out my dick in front of another man and began to jerk off. I pulled my shorts down midway to my thighs so I could jerk off real good. I closed my eyes and began to do my thing. I let the moaning of the two people fucking on the screen take me to that place where I could get the best nut possible.

  A few seconds later, I felt my shorts being tugged at and I opened my eyes to see Jarrod on his knees in front of me. I was not expecting that. I stopped pulling at myself and froze.

  “Jarrod, what’s going on?” I looked at him in fear. I was still high and I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming.

  “Dude, just chill out and relax. I got this. I promise this will stay between us.”

  I didn’t know what to do. So I just stayed still. He proceeded to pull my shorts off past my knees and then he lifted my legs over his head and pulled me forward some, until his face was directly in front of my dick. This is some gay shit. I need to get out of here. I really need to get the fuck out of here. My body didn’t budge. I was too scared to. This was going to be my first sexual experience whether I wanted it to be or not.

  “Dude, I’m going to toss your salad while you jerk off.” He was dead serious. I just nodded my head like I had done this before. The minute he spread my ass cheeks apart and licked my ass I tensed up. It was like an electric shock went through my body.

  “Dude, relax and get your nut. You are going to like this for sure.” He went back to eating me out and after a few seconds I started to loosen up. I didn’t know if it was the alcohol or the weed, but pretty soon I was jerking myself and Jarrod was going to town on my ass. About ten minutes later, I came on my chest like I had never come before. Seconds later he came and then he got up. He walked out of the room and returned with two wet washcloths. I lay there like I was lost.

  “Dude, clean yourself up.”

  I slowly sat up and wiped myself off and pulled my shorts up. Jarrod started cleaning off the table. I just stared at the floor, dazed and confused. That euphoric feel that men got after a good nut didn’t last that long for me. I felt like shit.

  “Dude, you okay?” He sat on the sofa on the other side of the room.

  I looked at him and shook my head. “Man, I . . . I don’t know. What did I just do? I mean what did we just do?” I spoke candidly.

  “Dude, we just got wasted and got a good-ass nut off. That is all.” He shrugged his shoulder, like it was a normal thing.

  “Are you gay man?” I just blurted it out.

  “Nah, man, I’m not gay. I just like to get off a good nut. Are you gay?”

  “No, man, I don’t fuck with dudes like that.” I spoke, but couldn’t really look at him in the eye. I was too ashamed of what I had just done.

  “Well, there you go. We’re not gay.”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  We sat there in silence for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Sorry, dude, you got to go. I got some stuff I need to take care of.” He hopped up off of the sofa like a jackrabbit.

  “All right . . . Okay.” I eased off of the sofa and walked to the door. I opened it and looked back to see if Jarrod was going to be locking it behind me. He wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  I walked to my truck a little wobbly legged and hopped in. I couldn’t help but go back over this whole situation in my head again on my way back to the campus. I felt like I was just used. I felt like a garbage bag on the side of the curb. Jarrod didn’t even have the courtesy to say good-bye, good luck, or nothing.

  As I walked in my room and sat on my bed it crossed my mind that Jarrod never called me by my name. It was always “dude this” or “dude that.” It made me wonder if he did this often.

  The next day I got up with a double hangover. I couldn’t help but feel like something had changed in me. Or something was awakened in me. I walked around campus that day all fucked up in the head. I was just walking and thinking. What would my mother think? What would Carlos think? Shit, what do I think? Does this make me gay now?

  The following week I called Jarrod’s phone and it was disconnected. And I even stopped by the fraternity house again to see what was up with him. One of his frat boys said that he had transferred to another school and that last Saturday was his last day at the college. I was flabbergasted as I thought about what we did in that house that last Saturday, and here I came back to find out his ass was gone. I couldn’t help but wonder if he planned this, or did I just happen be in the wrong place at the wrong time? I didn’t know what to think. I felt like a fool. I felt crazy in the head. It was like I was losing my mind. I cried in my room for hours, it seemed like. I didn’t want to eat and I didn’t want to think. But it was all I could think about.

  I mentally decided that it was a one-time thing. That it was just an experiment. For the next couple of months, I blocked it out and moved on with my life. But that didn’t last too long. After a while it seemed like men were coming on to me all the time. At the Laundromat, the supermarket, the mall, everywhere. Carlos was oblivious to it all. But day after day I would start to notice more and more men making subtle moves on me. After a period of time, I started to give into some trustworthy men and just started fucking like crazy. You would be surprised at all of the downlow men on campus and off. I was eventually what people call “turned out.” I always protected myself sexually and condoms were in abundance in college, so it was never a problem having them. No one knew how I came to be who I was now, only me and Jarrod.

  I eventually drifted off to sleep on my couch with my past fresh on my mind, hoping that I wouldn’t be a clean up man forever.

  Chapter 4

  A House Is Not a Home

  I woke up this morning feeling kind of like I needed to be around my mom. So that is what I did. I jumped in the shower, threw on some jeans and a button-up shirt, and jumped in my truck. It was spring and I could smell the flowers that my neighbors had planted in their front yard. I lived in the Woodlawn area of Baltimore. It was a quiet neighborhood and most of the people owned their homes. I was still paying on mine, but if business kept going good, I would have it paid off in a couple of years.

  As I drove down the streets of Baltimore, I thought, My life is going good. Despite all the present pop-ups. My business was flourishing to the point that I was thinking about hiring an assistant to help me keep track of everything. I was pulling in close to $70,000 a year before taxes. I had a couple of grand in the bank. I lived well because I wasn’t limited to outside work or inside work. I did both. I went to college for the business aspect of it and then when I got out I went right to trade school. I excelled in both. I had my own business up and running by the time I was twenty-five.

  Being an only child, my mother pushed me hard to go far and above what was expected of me. I never really met my father and my mother didn’t have any pictures of him in the house. I inquired about him several times but she would always say, “You can’t miss what you didn’t have.” I checked my birth certificate and my father wasn’t listed. My mother had had a woman for as long as I could remember.

  At a young age I thought that they were just friends. As time went on this masculine lady would come over more and more and my mother would say that they were just friends. Up until I was about ten, I thought all of that was true. That was until kids in the neighborhood would start teasing me about having two mommies. Actually, they said the word “dyke.” I would yell out, “No, she not no wall.” I didn’t know that dyke had two meanings. I learned in school that a dyke was another word for a wall. I was confused by their mocking so one day I asked my mom all about it.

  “Mommy, why do the people call you and Ms. Angie walls?” I was standing in front of a table she was sitting at, cutting up potatoes.

  “Boy, what are you talking about? Who calling us walls?” She looked confused.

  “Mommy, John and t
hem said you and Ms. Angie was dykes. I learned in school that dyke means wall. I don’t understand, Mommy.”

  “Baby, sit down.” My mother was a tall, thin woman, but she was very ladylike. She looked at me with her eyes filled with love.

  “Kraig, Ms. Angie and I are girlfriends and that is all. Just ignore what other people say. They talk foolish because they don’t understand Ms. Angie and me. Baby, we are not dykes or walls, we are girlfriends. Tell them to come see me if they want to really know what is going on. Okay?” She was so firm when she said the last part.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I nodded my head, got up, and hugged my mother, and went back outside to play.

  I pulled up to my mom’s house in the Edmondson Village area. I looked around at the dilapidated houses in the area. When I was growing up it was jumping around here; now it was a whole lot calmer. It felt weird, but it was still my home. I looked up at her yard, and there was no doubt that she had the best yard on the block, and maybe the entire neighborhood. I redid her porch, her garden, and her backyard. I took care of my momma and she had no worries when it came to me doing right by her.

  I got out of my truck and made my way up the front steps and used my key to get into the house. “Momma!” I yelled. It was dark in the house. For some reason my mother had all the shades down and lights off. It was early in the morning, but damn.

  “She’s sleeping, so keep your mouth down. You always were yelling like a little girl when you were a boy.” My mother’s girlfriend was sitting in the dark like she had lost her damn mind. She flicked on the lamp next to where she was sitting in a recliner that was in the corner of the room.

  “Excuse me?” I looked at her with disdain. At first, when I was growing up, we had a very respectful relationship. Then all of a sudden she just started getting disrespectful and calling me out all the time. Actually, it was after I came out to my mother. I assumed that my mother told her since they shared everything. It was odd because here she was a lesbian calling me out my name when we’re both living “the life.” But I did have a conversation with someone who told me that butch women think they are better man than gay men.

  “You heard me, Mr. Downlow.” She smirked.

  “Look, bi . . .” I stopped short of calling her what I wanted to for so long. I was in my mother’s house, and I respected it and this broad because I respected my mother. Plus, this bitch was a huge woman. Her ass just might have been able to take me down. Those were the only reasons I didn’t reach out and give this bitch her due.

  “Go ahead and say it, so I can show you what a real ass whooping feels like.” She smiled as she sat up and eased ahead a little in her chair.

  This bitch is loco for sure. I ignored her aggressive ass and walked toward the kitchen.

  I was in the kitchen making me a bagel with cream cheese when Angie walked in the kitchen, disturbing the peace. I was sitting at the table, trying to mind my business. She decided that she wanted to join me. Damn, go back in the other room!

  “So what you been up to? Hoing around as usual, I take it?” She was always in my business. My mother would never be this intrusive.

  “Yep, I just got finished nutting in your father’s mouth and then I fucked him on the floor . . . twice.” I smiled and took a bite out of my bagel. The look on her face was one of defeat. I have told that bitch don’t come for me.

  “Hey, baby!”

  I saw my mother coming through the door to the kitchen. I hope she didn’t hear what I just said to Angie.

  “What are you two down here doing?” That told me that she didn’t hear what I just said or at least she ignored it.

  “We weren’t talking about nothing important, Momma. We were just having a little chat about life.” I looked toward Angie and smiled. I wasn’t the mean type. I just demanded the same respect I gave. Point blank.

  “Okay, baby.” She came over and put her hand on my head and kissed me on the cheek. “So to what does Momma owe the pleasure of this visit today?”

  “Nothing special, I just came to see my momma.”

  “Boy, please. I know my baby. You are here for something.” She laughed as she went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. She set it down next to me and removed the glass of soda I had sitting next to me and put the water bottle in its place. She was always mothering me.

  “Welllll . . .” I smiled. “I do need my hair in cornrows and nobody does it better than you, Momma.”

  “Ummm hmmm. I bet.” She laughed.

  Angie had been quiet for a minute now. I decided to break the ice. “You okay, Ms. Angie? Are you feeling okay? ” I asked like I was sincere. I really didn’t hate Angie, it’s just that she was always trying to tell me what to do and not to do and she was never nice when she said it.

  “I’m fine. Just fine.” She got up from the table and kissed my mother on the lips. It was something I hated and she knew it, and then she walked out of the room almost stomping. My bottle of water almost followed her ass at full speed, but my momma was sitting there with such a smile on her face that it made me forget all about Angie’s crazy ass.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I looked at my mother like I was confused or perplexed. Inside I was giggling happily.

  “Baby, I don’t know what’s wrong with Angie. She just stressed out about work.” Angie was a cop and she took her job very seriously. Her ass was always talking about how she cleaning up this city and how she’s going to be the next police chief and all of that. I would just look at her and shake my head. But the bitch had just enough crazy in her that made me believe that she could do it.

  “So are you going do that for me, Momma?” I cocked my head to the side and gave her those puppy eyes. It was something she fell for every time. I didn’t really need to do it, because anything I asked she usually did for me. I thought she was overcompensating for the absence of my father, but she would never admit to it. I knew though.

  “Sure, baby, anything for my little man.”

  “Uh, Momma?”

  “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I mean . . . anything for my big, strapping son.”

  I knew it was crazy to ask my mother to validate my manhood, but who else was I going to ask? I was a momma’s boy for sure.

  Within an hour or so my hair was cornrowed and I was out the door and on my way to the bookstore. I loved to read: Mark Twain, Richard Wright, John Grisham, Stephen King, Zane, RM Johnson, E. Lynn Harris. I loved all genres and I needed to go pick up a couple of books. After that, I had to go look at a house in Aberdeen for a job estimate.

  Chapter 5

  Easy Access

  Today is a good day! I thought as I walked around my well-crafted kitchen. I had a mug of mocha coffee in my hand and a corn muffin in my lunch pail, along with a nice ham and Swiss cheese sandwich for lunch. I had already loaded the necessary tools into my truck at six o’clock this morning. It was going on seven now and I needed to be getting on the road. I didn’t want this to be an all-night job. Being my own boss has its advantages: I could show up when I wanted to. But I knew that people looked at that negatively. I didn’t want to perpetuate any already negative stereotypes on the black community.

  Being my own boss had its disadvantages as well: I was the only one for everything. This, again, reinforced my plans to hire help for myself. It would be nice to sleep in or have someone else on the job with me with all the lifting I had to do sometimes. I thought about asking Carlos, but I thought it would be best not to involve him in any situation like the last couple that had come my way. The last thing I needed was someone to proposition Carlos or something like that in my presence. I knew for sure that he would blow up or act out. Carlos was not homophobic at all. It’s just the thought of the act between a man and another man that got him worked up. I couldn’t blame him, because man-on-woman sex didn’t do it for me.

  Anyway, I exited my house, locked the doors, and hopped into my truck. I was a mild driver most of the time, unlike Carlos, who thought that the streets and highways we
re his own personal speedway. Many, many times when I got in his truck I made sure I buckled up and asked the Lord for forgiveness of my sins. He was just that bad. He made me want to say the last rites over myself many times while he was driving because I always thought that the end was near.

  I punched the address into my GPS because I only went to the house once to do some measuring and things like that. The house that I was going to was that of another business woman who had a high-power job that required her to travel frequently. I met her the other day at the house to do my estimates and get the check for the job. I always demanded the money up front. I was licensed and bonded so most people just went with the program.

  I was making her house more handicapped accessible for her husband. He was a newly handicapped man. A freak motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. I had to admit that he was a fine brother. He was once a sports agent for a local college, until the accident took his career and spirit. The whole time I was in the house he was silent. He did stare at me though, but I paid him no mind. His ass looked like he had lost all hope and was jealous of my mobility. They say you don’t miss the water until the well runs dry. I guessed he felt the same way about his legs. I shook my head in shame as I turned on to I-95 South, headed toward the house. My phone started ringing

  “Hello.” I had already had my Bluetooth in my ear, because of the laws now in place for driving without one in Maryland. It was Carlos. I smiled, because my best friend meant a lot to me. “Wassup, man!”

  “Nothing much, just doing a delivery to Food Lion out here on Liberty Road.” I heard what must have been his truck beeping as he backed up to the dock of the market. His ass knew he wasn’t supposed to be on the phone and driving that truck. His ass almost got fired once before for getting reported for it by a store manager who was watching as he came in almost too fast backward.