Black Like Us

by Devon Carbado

  Red and black lights revolved, her brain spun. Sleepless too many nights. The wig sat listlessly on her head. The bar curved away from her into the distance, as if embracing the cash register. Not but a few women, holding conversations in low tones. Monday, it was an off night. A high ceiling, and the bar echoed with notes from a jukebox. “Last time I wuz here they had a live band. Guess ’cause it’s Monday…but that’s cool.”

  Suzie’s not too smart, but very verbose. A meager intelligence had been allotted to her, plus no education going for her. In addition, she’s young and hasn’t gained wisdom. But it don’t stop her, not one bit! Talkative. One white woman, the sophisticated kind has come up; despite that $40 like the skins of frogs—green, slippery against her thigh, tucked in the top of her stockings, Suzie tells the woman, “Buy me a drank, I’m broke.” And her eyes, a moment ago wide, staring into space as she jiggled her legs and tapped her nails on the bar, her look immediately hardens. “Ain’t got a cent, it’s the end of the month,” she adds. “Oh really?” Says the woman looking directly in her eyes. She’s overweight, older, in her 40’s and has a pantsuit over her pear-shaped body, and a friendly smile on her face. Gives the young woman a knowing look. Suzie’s strong hustling rap won’t get over too swell here. It wasn’t necessary, and most women can see thru it.

  The lady buys her a drink. Soon the two are rapping. Words spill out Suzie’s mouth one after another. A little wad of white stuff is in the corner of her mouth, not wiped away and her eyes glazed—from not eating or sleeping. The woman asks her if she’d like to dance. “No. My body hurts. I’m fucccccked up.”

  She gives up on trying to view the women as a trick. Tho she may never abandon the hustle that she’s developed over the last 5 years— thru necessity—Suzie is not as cold hearted as she might seem at first. She talks about her life, her kids, her man, and why she’s here. The woman nods solemnly. After a couple of drinks in the all-women bar, which is still empty, it’s early, just 10pm, when the red lights are revolving over the barflies like goldfish in a bowl— “Your body is beautiful.” The woman says with a knowing twinkle. And touches her arm briefly. Suzie nods, “Right on.” She says nodding like she’s a million miles away, “but no touching please.” “I’m sorry.” The woman says, modestly. “That’s allright— I know you don’t know any better.” Suzie says, chin in the air. —She can’t stand for people to touch her—unless she’s getting paid for it.

  Down the bar at one end of its magnet-ends, two women are throwing the dice cups. “a horse on you.” One yells.

  Finally the woman leaves. She has to be at work at the office 9 the next morning. “take care of your body!” She calls out in a friendly tone, and waves goodbye.

  “I will, I’m number one.” Suzie says, but no one hears her, and the woman is gone out the door.

  Red and black shadows play up the walls for her to watch—nothing else much is happening. Relaxing in a stretch of bar all to herself—empty stools on both sides, full lips touch the rim of her glass, the beverage is almost gone, soon she’ll have to worry about getting the next drink, but those green bucks in her stocking she will preserve to the bitter end.

  One arm stretches to her purse a few inches away on the wet-stained bar. Bruises on the warm brown flesh; she retrieves a cigarette, snaps her lighter: “No more, I’m gonna learn Karate, Kung Fu, K-nife and K-razor…and K-gun. Sheit.”

  All thoughts of women’s liberation are out. —There were still many obstacles so many miles high and wide. She’s just trying to survive number one. Get her a little money together and get her own place and get her kids back from her mother’s. This was her struggle. She wished it was less real and mo’ fantasy, like a Mickey Mouse cartoon where the villain gets whooped over the head with a board. But this female liberation like drops of water one by one was beginning to touch her life with information; beginning with the pussy between her own legs, it’s as real as life and death. Stark as a heart attack.

  Flash. —It was always him first, never her. And she was sick of being in the life, already. Tired of a backstreet reputation and a sordid existence.

  The Good News of liberation had begun to attack this sistah’s brain with doubts as to her present profession.

  The stop watch in her life. The second glimpse at herself. She was about to move into a new dimension.

  In 1977, women were divided.

  “My kids are first. They come first. My kids. I got two, a girl, 6, the boy, 4. They’re number one. I’m getting my apartment and get my kids back.” She tells the bartender vehemently. The bartender agrees and she moves on down the line filling glasses. Suzie’s thick lips close together—lipstick is wearing off, and her brown eyes stare into the pit of sleeplessness inside her brain.

  “When I left Flash Gordon he was sitting there in nothing but his fur-lined hat with his hair in rollers underneath. Pectoral muscles in his big brown chest, curly hair disappearing down his stomach in an arrow pointing right at the only thing he’s got that’s worth anything—his dick. Big brown feets on the shag rug, and a mean expression on his face.

  Now don’t get me wrong, Flash Gordon is not the kids’ father. I just chose Flash last month.

  I’m in the life.”

  The clock moved swiftly towards 12 midnight.

  No cars were out in front of the club. Gaps of parking places. Next door to a shoddy hotel. Bottles once filled with wine along the gutters can be seen in the empty spaces. But by 12:30, inside was a little party happening. Bright colors of pantsuits and evening gowns. Folks blowing whistles. You see, welfare folks own no cars. And this Monday was the 30th, Mothers Day, so quite a little crowd had arrived.

  A butch came to the bar. Brown hair in a short natural, spiffily attired in jacket and pants to match plus vest. Platform shoes on her small feet that elevated her to 5'5" tall. Her brown face held no outward sign of the emotions within her, coolly she strode to the bar.

  When she bought her first beverage of the evening—a Coca Cola dyed pink in a tall glass, with it came a napkin and a note that read:

  FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION PLEASE END YOUR CONVERSATIONS INSIDE THE BAR AND NOT OUT IN FRONT OF THE BAR AFTER 2:00 OR YOU WILL BE ARRESTED. SO BE FOREWARNED, IT’S FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION.

  The police had been cracking down on the club—they considered it a dive—but, anybody could see, as the black and red lights danced their rays over the revelers who leapt into the air like gazelles, it was not nothing bad going on here, it just bes a party!

  The stud sat down at the bar—after debating whether or not to occupy a booth. But you can’t meet anybody that way. Slid onto the barstool with the weariness in her bones of a nigger. —That perpetual weariness of bearing up under stress. Lots of extra problems of homosexuals; she looked around to see what they bes into, these others like her. “If I had a daughter I would name her Gamine. It means plucky. Ability to stick it out. To endure hardships or humiliation without complaint.”

  The butch sat, elbows on the bar and a hat sat on her head, her feminine features; a corsage on her lapel, and the rest of her in the masculine-woman suit, vest, doubled breasted jacket and two-toned platform shoes.

  Red lamps shone from the bar, streaked her face with colors. Let us share the butch’s secret thoughts: Hungry for a woman, to press her heart against. Chest to chest as if pressing the love from her heart into the woman’s heart. The woman’s naked body under her own—spreading her legs. The butch goes down, licking her; the tip of her tongue flicking, probing, gently pushing the folds of the labia back with her fingers. Smooth, grainy, that female smell in her nostrils, mouth sucking, tongue alternately seeking out that hood shaped spot, and the pearl emerges. —The femme’s clitoris becomes hard. The butch’s tongue moving faster, harder in that most loving of physical acts. The femme moans as she lays back on the bed, her body goes taut, fingers alternately grasping the butch’s hair, and the sheet of the bed at either side. The butch alternately sucks and licks the woman’s vagina, concentratin
g on the clitoris, then the woman puts her whole mouth against her woman’s sex, sucking, while reaching up and fondles her breasts at the same time. The smell of their own strong sexuality. Then her mouth pulls away while her hand reaches down to manipulate the pearl tongue between the woman’s legs, while mouth sucking the nipple of one breast and wrapping her arms around her body to play with the woman’s other nipple. Gently she push her fingers into her mate’s pussy, thrusting a little ways, one finger in and out, then, as the vagina got bigger, two, then three fingers; at the same time alternately kissing the femme’s mouth or sucking her nipple. The love partner moans, arms wrapped around her lover’s body, arching her back, the butch slides down the femme’s raptured body, and goes down, again sucking her clitoris, while her fingers move in and out of her vagina at the same time. The femme climaxes moaning, her body hot, shuddering in short jerks, a sob deep in her throat.

  Now the butch stands over her mate at the side of the bed. The femme caresses the masculine woman’s thighs. Carefully she moves back the skin of her labia with her fingers and tentatively flicks the tip of her tongue, exploring, tasting, seeking the clitoris. She cups her hands around the butch’s buttocks, pulling the butch to her, till her fuzzy head is buried in pubic hair and gets the woman’s sex in her whole mouth, sucking, and the butch’s hips thrusting so that her sex goes up and down on the woman’s lips in short jerks. But she doesn’t come that way, instead, gently pushes her mate back on the bed, the femme spreads her legs for her, slowly sliding up around her body, as she gets between them, the butch’s pussy against the femme’s and pumps fast ’till the heat building up inside to a climax, pounding to a finish, a huge explosion like her whole body sobbing, or breathing. Hearts still beating, totally relaxed they lie beside each other. Then, they repeat this procedure for at least one more go round, but probably two. Three orgasms each, in other ways, maybe 69. The two of them sharing. They are both starved for a woman, it’s been such a long time. The beginning of a good thing… Now, we exit the butch’s skull, as she sits, twirling ice in the glass, eyes staring into space, not a trace of what she’s thinking betrayed on her cool face.

  So, she was in Soulville, and there she met a woman.

  Suzie Q was being a hooker. But not for long. Fast talking, gum smacking, red nail polish. She bes faaasssst!

  “I told her I was a player from New York, tho actually I’m from the Sunset district 30 blocks away. And that my name was Gamine, and she couldn’t pronounce it and called me Gama, like in Gamma ray. All night long and informed me her name was Suzie Q. But occasionally she’d slip up and say she was Mildred Johnson. For instance, ‘My mother told me, Mildred, you…’ And etc. With all these lies we told from the get go, we were destined to go far. Even if for no better reason then to see what it bes like.

  “Now I only told her I was a player because I know a ho when I sees one. Actually I’m a draftsperson. I draw blueprints for an architect firm. I’m a square. I just told her I was a player, I thought it would make her feel more at home. I didn’t want to brag up my good fortune or tell her what I have because her life wasn’t going well, I could see that. Black and blue marks over her pretty skin. Her life was on the rocks, and so she was being snotty.

  “Her name was ‘Suzie Q. 21 years old.’ But probably younger. She had a man—Flash Gordon named after the cartoon hero—his street name, and she was contemplating leaving him. Tired of his manhandling her. I thinks to myself, ‘Oh no, trouble.’ And also, ‘Why can’t the black sistah keep her shit together? Why they always have to complicate thangs by having a no good nigger—of either sex—in the background?’

  “However, against my better judgement, I gave her my phone number— the real one, at the apartment I was staying at. I guess she made me curious.”

  Later in the week, one night as the New York player was squeezing into sleep over the threshold, rang rang! goes the phone.

  It was Suzie Q.

  Her soft voice greeted the butch from the other end of the line, as that brown body uncurled amidst a sea of powder blue sheets. “May I speak to Gamma Ray please?” “gamma ray? what? who? huh?” The butch says. For a minute this went on. She practically had to fight with the mysterious caller, telling her there was no Gamma Ray there, until she recognized the voice. Suddenly the remembrance of that alias she’d given flooded back into mind, and the whole evening came back. The vision of a pretty woman in a pink outfit. “oh. ohh! dis is me!” The butch said at last, wiping some sleep out of her brain. “Uh, sorry…I thought you was someone else.”

  “who?” “Your old lady?” She queried.

  “Naw. I ain’t got an old lady.” The stud says sleepily—and that was mistake number two.

  At the other end of the line in a ramshackle motel room, Suzie Q sat on the edge of the sofa. Thick lips had just a faint hue of lipstick—the rest worn off. Her eyes wide, glazed. A combination of no sleep alcohol and pills. The young woman spoke into the phone: “It’s Flash Gordon he’s driving me crazy. He just gave me an ass whuppen. My haid hurts. And he told me ‘bitch blip de blop de bloop de blam!’ So I tried to kill myself. I took 20 black beauties and I been up since Monday.” (It was Friday.) “So I thought I’d call you.” And, without even a “let me tell you what happened can you spare a few minutes?” she launches into a detail blow by blow description of the unconscious workings of her life.

  In a monotone voice, yet gabbing a mile a minute, Suzie went on. It seems she had been down on the strip—those few blocks of motels and dilapidated buildings known as the red light district, in Pappy’s, one of the drinking and feeding joints where the hustlers hang out, and, as usual, she was acting crazy. Pappy’s needs a paint job, has an uneven flo’, 10 stools with ripped vinyl covers. They sell chicken, soda pop and the ladies of the evening go in there to get out of the cold and off their feet. Also, much dope exchanges hands.

  “This old man shuffles up to me, gurl, he’s got a face like a bulldog, and snaggle toothed ’n he’s so black yuh could paint a white line up his back and use him for a street ’n he growls, ‘how about some pussy on credit? I’ll pay you Friday, I gets my social security.’ ‘not in life!’ I says. And turns on my heel to end the conversation.

  “But the old farmer taps me on the shoulder. ‘Well then,’ he says, ‘What about $10. It’s all Ah got.’ I replied, ‘I ain’t fucken’ fo’ free, it’s $20.’ He says, ‘I’ll give you $10 and some weed.’ ‘Cash only.’ I replied coolly. “‘I’ll get the $20.’ He says. ‘Will you be here in half an hour? I got a buddy who owns the gas station down the way, I can get it from him, sugar.’ Now I knows about this old man, he likes to slobber all over you ’n there’s no way I’m gonna date him, not with all those other tricks riding around. He’s nasty. It’s not worth the trouble.

  “‘Naw, not today.’ I says. ‘I ain’t doin no fucken’ tonight, I’m tired. —My feet hurt.’ ‘But,’ he says, ‘Ah just want to…’ And I walk away. See I just don’t want to be bothered with no tricks. Period. And I’m determined to have a party with no tricks. Period. Nobody slobbering on me, grabbing on me, trying to run their sorry game down on me or nothing. Period. And I’m determined to have a party time and treat me right tonight. I’m feeling independent, and gonna do what I wants to do.

  “So I walk over to the jukebox, but the old man shuffles after me and says, ‘Well honey, all I want to do is eat you out.’ By this time I’m sick of him, gurl, he’s so ugly, so I says, ‘not unless you can find a rubber to fit your face.’ And everybody all up and down Pappy’s howls with laughter.

  “So that took care of that. I looks at the rows of bad soul hits on the jukebox lit by blue and orange lights and wishes I had a dime to play. If I dated the old man I’d still have that time to account for to my man and so I couldn’t spend the money anyway, so what’s the difference? Now I was drunk and highsiding. It ain’t nothing but a party.

  “The heat’s outside checking ID’s, so rows of hookers are lounging around, they can’t work. N
o pimps nowhere. Just chit-chatting, shooting that bullshit—talking about their mens, bragging up their men’s dicks, they men’s clothes, they men’s rides, they men’s this and thats, how good they mens treats them, while underneath everybody in the place knows they niggers ain’t worth shit.

  “So the walls of Pappy’s are ringing with cusswords and loud talk and all the hos getting bold with no mens around to keep them in line. Frankly it looks just like the gay bar. All womens. I’m thinking on this in secret. I’d never admit this to none of them bitches down at Pappy’s, they’s never let me hear the end of it.”

  The clock on the wrist of a hooker flashes red numerals an instant then goes out. She tosses her hand impatiently. Time ticks. Suzie Q is down the bar gambling just as loud as the next gal.

  Meanwhile, rang rang! Goes the phone inside a tiny motel room. A hefty man lies on the couch watching TV in fur lined hat, bare chest, fur trimmed trousers with suspenders and bare feet. Toenails polished—clear. Pimp style. He rolls off the couch, grunts, runs his hand over his thick jaw, there is stubble on it. He has thick black eyebrows. Walks across the floor, and grabs the ringing phone in his huge meat-chopping hand.

  Down at Pappy’s, Suzie gabs on into the night with any ho who will listen. The heat is gone, the girls are back outside at work—but she’s feeling independent, and not in the mood. She don’t know it, but the grapevine is simmering. A nosey bitch has snitched to her man, and her man calls Suzie’s man and runs down the story:

  “What’s wrong there at the crib Flaaasssh my man? Is you getten weak, you can’t manage yo’ ladies no mo’?” Came an ignorant drawl, snake-like thru the phone, hostilly. “Word has it yo’ bitch Suzie Q turned down a $20 date with a regular trick ’n all she had to do was lay up there with her legs cocked and let the freak suck her off, man. One of my bitches dated him last week.”

  3 am on the ho stroll. Black night streaked by silver from the lampposts. whizzz of cars passing by outside. Tired hos is gabbing indoors. The heat is gone, but so is the tricks. And that’s when a bitch challenges Suzie Q, coldly dropping the fact that Flash had paid that white woman to go out with him, and at least her man nevah nevah did nothing that chicken shit; dropped this like a penny into an empty collection plate so it rattled in silence—rubbing salt in the wounds.