“I can cook for you, Daddy,” Raven said.
“That’s sweet, baby. It’s getting late now. Go get ready for bed.”
“Okay, Daddy. Good night. Good night, Korea.”
“Good night,” Korea said. “She has really great manners. I’m looking forward to getting to know her.”
“She’s like a changed little girl, now that Shawna is gone.”
“Didn’t they get along?”
“It’s complicated.” Hartford could feel the tension in her shoulders as he rubbed them. His hands were strong and he effortlessly massaged deeply into the muscles, squeezing the pressure out.
“That’s weird,” Korea said.
“What’s weird?” Hartford asked her, running his hands down her arms.
“Don’t feel vulnerable with you. I feel supported.”
“That’s a good thing,” Hartford said, not surprised by her finding. “Don’t you know me by now? That’s what I do. I support people, in music and in life. I’m a musician. I create the music babies are made to. I give life.”
Korea lay back in Hartford’s arms and watched the fire logs burn until they both fell asleep.
WHEN DREAM CROW STEPPED OFF THE ELEVATOR, she gave Korea a big hug, as if she had known her for years. “Korea Smith, I’m so pleased to meet you after all of these years. Who would’ve ever thought you would end up a part of my family after all.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, too, Dream Crow. I’ve heard so much about you, and you, too, Blue, of course. Have we met before?”
“Oh, forgive me. Everyone calls me Dream Crow; have since I was a child. My married name is Bandarofski. I guess you could say that I’ve been your sponsor for years. It’s a shame you shut your businesses down. I’ve been donating for years to your girls program.” Dream Crow put her arm over Korea’s shoulder and said, “Now is not the place or time to talk about this in detail, but you and I have an old friend in common. Do you remember Keith?”
Dream Crow could have knocked Korea over with a feather. She stood there with her mouth gaped open, remembering the man that had left her with a piece of him she could never forget. “No worry,” Dream Crow said, reaching for her hand. “He’s long gone. We can have coffee some time. I will tell you all about it.”
Blue and Dream Crow sat their brother down and promised him they would raise Alex in love. Hartford cried, but was completely agreeable.
“So,” Korea chimed in. “You don’t want to take Raven?”
“Oh no, no, honey, bless the Lord,” Blue said. “If I were you, I’d think about getting her an exorcism. Here you go, baby,” she said, handing her a small paper bag. “I brought you some something.”
“Gee,” Korea said, looking in the bag curiously. “Thanks.”
“It’s sage. You might want to start burning it now in Raven’s room.”
“Sage? I’m not sure it agrees with me.”
“You don’t say. Maybe you two will get along then,” Blue said, looking at her suspiciously.
“Hi, everybody,” Raven said, skipping cheerfully down the hallway. She stopped by her father’s leg and reached for his hand. She eyeballed her big sister and gave her a crooked smile. “Hi, Alex,” she said sweetly. She dropped Hartford’s hand, put earphones on, and scrolled through the playlist on Alex’s iPod screen.
Alex stabbed her with her eyes. “Can we go now, Auntie?” she asked Dream Crow.
“Sure thing. Blue?” She nodded at her sister. “Are you ready to take off?”
Korea called for the elevator.
“Well, we need to get on out of here, Hartford. I’m sure Alex has a lot of things to get from your house.”
“Let’s go,” Hartford said.
“Daddy, can I go?”
“No, baby, you stay here. You can help Korea with dinner.”
“I would do that, if I were you,” Blue said.
“Hmm,” Raven pouted, adjusting the volume on the player. “I shot the Sheriff…” she sang as she walked back down the hall.
“Hey there, Charlie O,” she said when the elevator doors opened.
“It’s a fine day for a ride, ladies and gentleman, step right on inside,” Charlie O said, smiling broadly. Hartford ushered his sisters on board. He turned to help Alex onto the elevator but she was charging down the hall after Raven. She caught her by her ponytail and pulled her to the floor.
“I told you not to touch what’s mine!” Alex smacked her repeatedly in the head. “Take them off! Take them off!” She snatched the headphones and iPod from the little girl.
“Hey, you two, what’s going on?” Korea asked, running down the hall to pull Alex off of the little girl.
“I’m just taking what’s mine,” Alex said, putting the headphones on. Raven shook the ass whipping off, as Korea helped her to her feet.
“I can respect that,” Korea said.
Raven rubbed her head and looked at her sister in disbelief. “I can respect that, too. I guess jail made you hard.”
Alex rolled her eyes and strutted victoriously back to the elevator.
KOREA STAYED HOME WITH RAVEN, who was clicking away on Stormy’s computer. “What is it about this room that causes everyone to become a clicker?” she said to herself, reaching for the door. She stuck her head in the door.
“Hey, you,” she said. “Is everything all right in here?
“Hey,” Raven said.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure, Mommy.”
Korea wasn’t sure how she felt about Raven calling her “Mommy.”
“You can call me by my name,” she said. “Korea or Ms. Korea will do for now.”
“But I like to call you Mommy.”
If I’m going to be anything around here, I’m going to be Daddy, Korea thought. She would talk to Hartford about it. “Hey,” she said in her friendliest voice. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking up recipes so I can make you some special cookies.”
CHAPTER 18:
COMFORT FOOD
Stormy had quickly become the food critic to be aware of in Washington, D.C, when her first review slammed a popular yuppie favorite, better known for its sexy, scantily clad waiters than for its overpriced food. It was said that the place was bankrolled by a congressman’s wife, who had found favor in the young grad student at Georgetown University who owned it. “The waiters wore midriff tuxedo shirts, with red bowties and low-cut slacks, and the hottest thing in the kitchen was the chef himself,” Stormy wrote in her review… “My Nuclear Family platter, complete with meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables, was packed full of flavor. In fact, I think I still have some Lipton onion soup mix in my molar. I suppose the sugar-mommas who patronize the quaint little waterfront joint (conveniently located across the street from an all-too-popular boutique hotel) don’t need their meatloaf so hot it could melt denture glue, but every portion of the meal was cold. Oh, except my iced tea; it, my friends, was room temperature…Oh well, the next time I want my vanilla bean crème brulee served with college boy butt cleavage, I will definitely know where to go.”
The subsequent threats and demands for retractions coming from the senator’s office put The Cutting Board on the map, giving them power to rival The Post and the Times’ Lifestyle news sections.
“Stormy Talbert,” she read the placard on the door and smiled. She fished for the key and unlocked the door, closing herself inside with her laptop and carryout container from Capitol Hill Deli and Grill.
There was nowhere to sit, not for her or anyone else, inside the tiny mom and pop restaurant that had captured the hearts and bellies of senators, congressmen, and diplomats from all over the world with what was reportedly the best French onion soup outside of Mez. So, like everyone else, she had ordered hers to go.
“Savor the Flavor! Five kinds of onions; one grown on every continent,” she read on the bag. She slid the bowl out to find her soup packed in a fancy ceramic bowl. When she removed the foil, she was greeted by a bea
utiful kaleidoscope of champagne colors and husky fragrances of provolone, Swiss, and parmesan cheeses, oozing over the bowl’s edge. She savored the flavors, both rich and simple; beef and chicken broth, toasted sourdough, roasted garlic, thyme, olive oil, and sugar. There were sea salt and fresh ground pepper, bay leaf and maybe even a hint of vermouth, all spilling over her spoon as she dipped again through the cheesy brim and watched it fill with the famous day-old crystallized vegetables and mouth-watering, dry sherry-infused soup.
“The line was long and the wait, practically unbearable, in my new Joan & David shoes, but as they say, anything this good is worth waiting for. And for this heart-warming experience, I would gladly stand in the soup line,” Stormy typed. She saved her article and emailed it to the copy editor’s desk, turned her laptop off, and packed it. She grabbed her coat and headed for the door. “Oh, my God,” she said out loud. Her new assistant had framed her invitation to join the Food Critics Guild and hung it next to the door. There was a little sticky note on it that read: “Congrats! Come home.”
She missed Tisa’s call in the elevator, but she knew her lover would call her before she could reach the garage and start her car.
“Hello?”
“Hey, baby, I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Tisa.”
“Are you on your way?”
“Yes.”
“Good, I have a surprise for you.”
“What is it?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
“Hmm…you have a point. I will be there in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Stormy drove through the maze of lines and circles that made up the streets of downtown D.C. She wasn’t a very confident driver, so she was used to getting stuck in a circle or two nearly every day. But that day, she was full of confidence. She had everything she had ever wanted and so much more. She was a highly paid columnist and an official member of the Food Critics Guild. She was respected and she was loved by a woman who was powerful enough to have anyone in the world of journalism. So when a man tried to force her to stay within the boundaries of Dupont Circle, she honked until he let her turn in front of him. She smiled and waved at the man as she passed and reflected on her new life, spread before her like a perfectly set table. Her newfound confidence and emotional resilience were scintillating appetizers that made her mouth water for more of this good life. Tisa’s love and loyalty were the sweetest dessert. But Stormy’s career was the main course that had won her the respect of her readers and peers that nourished her soul. Her self-respect emitted a bountiful bouquet that washed all doubt away and Stormy felt just like comfort food.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Best known as founder of The Punany Poets, Jessica Holter, also known as “Ghetto Girl Blue,” is a mother, an author, a gifted orator, a talented visual artist and an activist for AIDS awareness and sexual abuse recovery. She created The Punany Poets in 1995 after the untimely death of Eric “Eazy-E” Wright of AIDS. Her theater group, The Punany Poets, has appeared on HBO’s Real Sex, Black Entertainment Television, Playboy TV, London’s Channel 5 and Cinemax. Her sexy stories are in rotation on Playboy Radio (XM) and she has self-published six books under The Punany Poets Entertainment, LLC. Best-selling Author/Publisher Zane compiled her most riveting poetic works into a hardback anthology, Verbal Penetration, in 2007. The Punany Experience is Holter’s first novel from Strebor Books. Holter continues to tour the country in live stage plays and cabaret performances. She actively promotes AIDS awareness and female empowerment though her growing line of public service advertisements, print media, audio/radio, video and film and novelties. Visit her at www.punanypoets.com.
SNEAK PREVIEW! IF YOU ENJOYED “THE PUNANY EXPERIENCE,” CHECK OUT THIS EXCERPT FROM
The Grave Mothers
by Jessica Holter
COMING FROM STREBOR BOOKS IN 2012
THE BALLAD OF BID WHIST
Every week they met for a game
and every time they played
their game got stronger.
Every night they watched the news,
and saw their sons’ appalling reviews,
their hearts grew harder.
It seemed to them the world had gone
to hell while the Lord was sleeping.
For in their bedrooms and their wombs
the devil himself had been creeping.
They had been waiting for the Lord to stir
while their sons were given
to rape, violence and murder
They had been waiting for the Lord to wake,
long enough to see
Jesus would not be back before
the end of the century
and neither would any man.
What is an urban maiden to do
when dealt by poverty’s hand?
“Poor” dislodges America,
in ways that cannot be comprehended
Who among the four would have amended
a mother’s love could be
so effectively deceiving?
Tonight my friend,
you would be wise to be believing that
when a woman’s fed up
there shall be no reprieving!
Like bad fruit, brought forth from the tree
so is the fruit of thy womb
To hell with the woman who does not
bury her spoiled seed inside a tomb!
So uptown and downtown
four women tally their tricks
in this story I like to call
the Ballad of Bid Whist
In my lap, lay your mane
Let me get in your left brain
I will try to explain right off the cuff
This is a story for all of the mommas
who have had enough!
Not those in love with foolish, angry thugs
but those who want their hugs
to amount to more than money on the books
and understand that a woman is
more than her cooking, her punany
and her looks
Grab that little motherfucka up in your fists
look him into those absent little
street-corner-bum eyes and say,
“Look, motherfucker,
I ain’t playing with your bitch ass
stop being an asshole today
Stop killing and raping or I will abort you
just as fast as for forgiveness I pray
“You ain’t bad, little boy, and you ain’t tough
chill on all you thought you were about
’cause, Momma brought you in this world
and Momma will take you out.”
CHAPTER 1 — THE KIN
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Jackson paced back and forth at the foot of the bed. “I asked you that. Didn’t I?” He looked at Helen, lying on the bed. Her eyes were swollen from crying. Her lips were dry and cracked and her hair smelled of sweat and dandruff. She still had on the dress she was wearing when he snatched her up out of the abortion clinic three days before. “Damn, Helen, you have been running up behind The Kin since you were ten years old, talking about how you want to be down. And now that you have the chance to do something important…to do something really meaningful, you’re going to bitch up? Damn, Helen. You know what that is? That’s fucked up. That’s what that is. It’s fucked up and it’s selfish.”
He walked to the basement window, and stared through the bars at the lawn he had played in as a child. “We had some good times back there,” Jackson said, smiling. “Remember the time Leon’s momma chased him around the lawn with that switch?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“That was some funny shit.”
“I remember when you fell out of that plum tree. You got knocked out cold. We all thought you were going to die.”
“I remember you crying.”
“I was not.”
“Yes, you were.”
&nb
sp; “Yes, I was.” Helen looked up into his softening eyes. Jackson stepped toward her, and reached out to touch her face. “That’s the day I fell in love with you. That’s the day I knew you were going to be our queen.” He reached in his pocket for some lip balm and sat on the edge of the bed beside her. He dipped his finger into the tiny jar and rubbed the oil on her mouth. “You need to take care of yourself, Helen. There’s a shower over there and my momma sent some clean towels down.” Helen looked at the neatly stack pink towels sitting on the chair by the bathroom door, and nodded. She searched his eyes for some semblance of sanity but all she found was some love, left over from back in the day when they talked for a minute. So she reached for that and held on to it tightly.
“Jackson. We can try it again. We can make it right this time.”
“Oh, but it is right. It is. It is very right. I could not be more right.”
“Jackson, I love you. Come on, man. Let me get a do-over on this one. And we can plan it and do it right. I want to be the first one to give you a son.”
“Don’t you understand?” He held her face in his hands. “This baby is the son. He will be the first. Everyone will love him. He will be born with respect. None of his fathers can say that for themselves. Don’t you see? He is a gift and this gift belongs to all of us. The baby is not yours to take away from us. So stop fucking thinking about killing him! You are so ungrateful.” He slapped her face, quickly three times with his right hand. “Why are you so ungrateful? Oh, I guess you want to have your fun and forget about it. Is that it?”
“No, Jackson, that’s not it, I…”
“I get it. You don’t want to be reminded every time you see your son, of how you got on your back for seventeen niggahs. Is that it? Helen, is that it? What, you shame of The Kin now?”
“No, Jackson. That is not it. You know I am down for The Kin. I don’t regret shit. I just…”
Helen reached out to stroke his hand and let her tears flow.
“Aw, baby, why are you crying?” He kissed her lips. “Don’t cry.” He climbed on top of her. “Are you crying because you love me now, but you’re afraid I’m going to think you are a nasty bitch?” Helen started crying louder. Jackson pulled her dress up. “You are a nasty bitch.” He freed himself from his pants and pushed quickly inside of her. He licked the tears on her cheeks and stroked deeply. “No worries, Helen. I like nasty bitches.”
The Punany Experience Page 24