Life Without Hope

by Leo Sullivan

  radio, but couldn’t recall a thing she said. In her arms she was car-

  rying books. I closed the door limping toward her. “Life, Boy! Did

  you see the news?” I had not really paid any attention to anything

  she had said. My attention was focused on the carpeting on the

  floor pulled up. I walked over to it, bent down and examined it.

  My money was gone. Never trust a bitch with a fat ass and a sexy

  smile. Trina had beat me for my stash.

  *****

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  Chapter Six

  Chapter Six

  “Thug Love versus Old Love”

  – Hope –

  I drove away from that hotel with the residue of Life Thugstin in

  my skin, and in my flesh. I felt humiliated and ashamed. The car

  I drove was the evidence of my sins, my betrayal to the man I love,

  my boyfriend Marcus, and yet, I thought about Life and what

  happened at that hotel. The way that man made love to me, I had

  never experienced nothing like that before. He had sexed me to

  the point of tears. As a young woman, I did not even know that

  was possible. Ecstasy! I thought about his soft touch, how he

  spread me apart, placed his lips on my privacy, devouring me. Yes,

  I knew it was so wrong, but for that moment in time it felt so

  right. I could understand why women cheat, but I was so wrong,

  morally wrong, or was I?

  Hope can I lick you there?

  Shit! I cursed

  the diction in my mind, changing lust over reason, infidelity over

  love. I was so wrong! Life and Marcus were as different as day and

  night. Marcus just graduated from college with a degree in

  Structural Engineering. He came from a middle class family. He

  was high yellow with curly hair, a real “Pretty Boy.” We had been

  together for over two years and he was the man that I gave my vir-

  ginity to. I almost never enjoyed making love with him. He just

  never satisfied me, and oral sex was out of the question. There was

  so much I wanted to learn. I asked him to experiment and he then

  accused me of cheating on him because of the things I wanted to

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  do with his body. So I decided long ago that sex was not every-

  thing. Now I wondered about all the things that I had been miss-

  ing. Life taught me a lot but Marcus ruled my mind. As I pulled

  up in his driveway, I had a lot of explaining to do and I needed to

  do it before Trina saw him. The trepidation of it wore me down

  like a ball and chain. I knocked on his front door. His front porch

  was decorated with all kinds of exotic plants. The summer breeze

  felt good on my face. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I pawed at

  my hair. The door opened. Marcus Green was dressed in causal

  black slacks and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt. He took one look at me

  and smiled, taking me into his arms.

  “Girl, I missed you,” he said dearly, planting wet kisses on my

  face and neck. He pulled me inside. He was unusually vibrant and

  beamed. “I’ve found a job!” Animated, he carried me through his

  small apartment with the excitement of a man that had just

  accomplished one of his biggest dreams and he wanted to cele-

  brate. In my mind I wished that I didn’t come; the generic smile

  on my face was as plastic as a storefront mannequin. He sensed my

  discomfor t. “Baby are you OK?” he asked, while taking my hand

  and cocking his head sideways, affection written all over his face.

  “I’m just tired from the long drive,” I said and kissed him on

  the cheek, feeling so guilt-ridden that I wanted to run out of the

  door.

  Marcus watched me intently. “Let me get you something to

  drink. Want a beer to celebrate?” he asked as his eyes roamed my

  body in a way that I knew so well. I nodded my head yes and

  watched as he danced away with a look in his eyes. I had the

  uncanny feeling that something was not quite right.

  I sat on the couch and the television was on the news. I

  watched absent-mindedly as a litany of voices chanted in my head.

  All of them chaos of my guilt. Suddenly on the screen, three white

  faces jumped out at me. Star tled, I felt my heart racing as I sat on

  the edge of my seat. The newscaster began to announce that three

  men had been shot. I covered my mouth with a trembling hand.

  My question was finally about to be answered.

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  “Last night, three men were robbed at gun point and shot in

  the buttocks. The victims stated that they were robbed by five

  heavily armed Black men driving an older model Ford Mustang.”

  Marcus returned with drinks in his hand. My eyes were glued

  to the television set like I was in some kind of trance. He sat down,

  passed me my drink and placed his arm around me just as a com-

  mercial came on. I was trying to decipher what I had just heard,

  and yes, it was tragedy that those men had been shot in the ass,

  but thank God they were not dead. And then it dawned on me

  what the announcer said, “… five heavily armed men … shot in

  the buttocks.” I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud, maybe from

  the relief that the thug, Life, had not killed those men.

  Marcus was talking a mile a minute, and I never heard a word

  he said until he turned to me and looked at me strangely, and

  asked what was I laughing at. I turned and kissed him fully. In

  return, he responded in a way that caught me off guard. He acted

  as if he were star ving for my body. His dexterous hands found

  their way under my blouse, unhooking my bra with the snap of a

  finger, releasing my breasts. My nipples were still sore from the

  night before. I didn’t know why. I had no intentions of having sex

  with him, but my conscience needed to relieve the guilt of my

  debauchery. His mouth found my nipples and he gently nibbled

  on them in a way that almost drove me crazy. His body language

  was urgent, a man’s desire that he needed me, it felt almost prim-

  itive. And in the cramped chamber of my mind, where I had

  wronged him, I needed him, too. Needed him to forgive me. In

  my heart I loved him. I would not deny him, not today, not ever,

  I needed his forgiveness. My love was all I had to offer. I pulled

  away from him. He opened his mouth to complain but I silenced

  him by putting my finger over his pouting lips, and stood, giving

  him a look with the promise of the world I was offering as I dis-

  robed down to my bare essence. With no inhibitions, no

  restraints, I gave him my sinful body to do with what he pleased.

  He laid me on the couch gently, entered me slowly. I closed my

  eyes and Life’s handsome face appeared. I spread my legs wider,

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  whispering epithets into his ear. I wanted him to punish me, purge

  me from my sins. But all Marcus could do was poke me, and eight

  minutes later we were finished. He lay on top of me spent, panti-

  ng like he had just got finished running a race. We didn’t use a

  condom. My mind was so full of guilt that I forgot, but Marcus

  on the other hand, was a stickler for birth control.


  “Hope, I love you.” Marcus slobbed on my face with wet kiss-

  es, his weight was starting to hurt, and to be truthful, I was very

  disappointed in his lovemaking skills again. It numbed my guilty

  conscience considerably. Marcus then asked, in what sounded like

  practiced tones, “Hope, will you marr y me?”

  His timing was horrible! I did not answer, but in the back of

  my mind, I wondered if he intentionally didn’t use a condom. He

  was still lying on top of me, his weight still uncomfortable. Just as

  I was about to complain, avoiding his question, in my peripheral

  vision I caught a glimpse of something on the television set. It was

  a police chase shown from a helicopter, Oh my God! It was Life

  Thugstin in a car chase running from the police. The camera

  showed him driving down one-way streets, over guard rails up

  until the point he exited the car at the mall. Now the reporter was

  showing footage, a couple exiting the mall. I could vaguely see

  myself walking with Life. Our figures showed up as only darkened

  shadows. The reporter was asking for any help that might lead to

  any arrest of the suspect. I thought my heart was going to explode

  in my chest. Suddenly, Marcus’s weight on top of me was too

  much to bear. He was still whispering lilting affections into my

  ear. “Hope be my wife.” I could feel his little erection on my thigh

  prodding now with anew vigor, but all I could envision were

  prison bars. It felt like he was suffocating me.

  You’ll be back in a

  hurry, trust me!

  Life’s words resonated in my brain like a bomb

  being detonated. I shoved Marcus off of me and he nearly fell on

  the floor. “Hope! What’s wrong with you girl?” he screeched. I sat

  up, flustered, running my fingers through my hair. Now I was

  wondering if Life left something in that car, something to make

  me come back to him. Oh, God! And the police were looking for

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  me, too. I untangled my body from Marcus’ and began to quick-

  ly dress. Marcus was pleading for all the wrong reasons. “Hope, I

  love you. You know that I do. Talk to me.”

  My mind was racing a mile a minute. I touched his arm. “I

  love you too, but we’re rushing things. I still have four years of law

  school and you still need to get situated,” I said, gesturing with my

  hands emphasizing on his small apar tment.

  Crestfallen, Marcus casted his eyes to the floor. I couldn’t help

  thinking to myself,

  men are like little boys when it came to rejection.

  Even though I loved him, I was not trying to marry him, not now.

  Plus there was something else about him that I just could not put

  my finger on. “You did agree to move in with me after you grad-

  uated from college, and if I’m good enough to shack with I’m

  good enough to marry,” he spit defensively. Sometimes when

  Marcus was ill tempered he acted peevish and now he was star ting

  to piss me off as he stood with his bird chest stuck out, eyebrows

  knotted together in contempt.

  “First of all, I never agreed to move in with you. I said that I

  would think about it and that was only because I felt that it would

  be good for us financially.”

  “Now I have a job, a good one. We can get married, have some

  babies –”

  “Marcus!” I screamed his name so loud I thought the vein in

  my neck was going to burst. “There will be no babies! I can assure

  you of that!” I slid that in to let him know that I was on to his lit-

  tle move that he made by not using a condom. “And no marriage.”

  Now it seemed like my tongue had a mind of its own, and the

  more I talked, the smaller Marcus got. “I am not going to be

  dependent on no man. What part of this don’t you understand? I

  fully intend to be a self-sufficient, independent Black woman

  doing her own thang. And until I am ready to have some babies,

  there will be none!” I rolled my eyes at him. Marcus looked at me

  as if I had just doused him with cold water.

  “Fine! If that’s the way you want it, Miss Independent Black

  Woman.” And then he did something that struck a serious nerve.

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  He stood and pointed his finger in my face. “You’re 21 years old.

  You need to first understand, this is a man’s world.” He said it like

  he was taunting me, and the reality of it sent chills down my spine.

  I knew that it held some truth, but I was not going to back down.

  “Girl, I’m tr ying to take care of you.”

  “Shit.” I hissed standing akimbo wearing the wrath of my

  anger, “That’s just what I don’t want you to do, take care of me.”

  I shot back at him. “Yeah, you would wanna keep me barefoot and

  pregnant, and after I have all your babies, trade me for a younger

  version, I think not!” I pointed my finger in his face shaking my

  neck. We were standing too close for comfort now.

  “Do what the fuck you want to do!” he yelled, grabbing me by

  my shoulders. “I am not putting my life on hold for your women’s

  liberation bullshit dream.”

  I pulled away from him. This was our first real fight.

  “Don’t you ever put your hands on me!” I lamented with my

  little fists balled up ready to tag his ass. He opened his mouth

  about to speak and thought better of it and stormed out of the

  room. I continued to get dressed. I noticed a few of my things

  around his apartment and wondered if I should take them. I knew

  in doing so what the implications would mean. I don’t care what

  anyone says, life is the hardest for a Black woman. Not only was I

  discriminated against for being a woman, but for also being a

  Black woman. And for some strange reason, brothas found me

  intimidating when they learned my aspirations.

  I headed for the door. My anger was starting to quell. Maybe

  I did go too far. I was trying to be a woman dealing with a man in

  a relationship.

  “Call me. I’ll be on the air tonight,” I said swallowing my

  pride. “We need to talk.”

  Marcus appeared from the shadows of the door way down the

  hall. I could not read his continuance, didn’t want to either. I

  closed the door to our lives and meandered to my car. I glanced

  up at Marcus’ window to see him standing there watching me.

  Good for his ass,

  I thought. Make a brotha sweat, let him see me in

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  my new ride. Let him know I wasn’t doing all that bad. For the

  first time in my life I had no regrets about accepting the car from

  thug, Life.

  I put on my dark shades, turned up the volume to my boom-

  ing car system. My girl Mary J. Blige was crooning, “Not Gon’

  Cry.” I drove out of the parking lot bouncing to the rhythm. That

  was my song, haay! Now it held special meaning. There’s some-

  thing about a break up that can either zap your strength, or be

  very empowering, if you’re determined to be an independent

  Black woman like myself. I drove all the way to the campus withr />
  a new-found resolve for myself.

  It was like being back home after being gone for so long.

  FAMU campus is like one big happy family. I was suddenly filled

  with a feeling of euphoria as I watched students perambulate the

  campus grounds. I was scheduled to graduate that year.

  I pulled into the student parking lot, waved at a few of my

  friends and chatted with some. As I was unpacking my things

  from the car, I thought about Life’s words,

  you’ll be back

  . I

  searched the car for something he might have left. I could find

  nothing. I sighed in relief, and then something told me to look

  under the front seat. I stuck my hand under the seat and felt that

  big-ass gun that he called Jesus. I slumped in my seat. That’s when

  I noticed the trashcan. I thought about dumping the money and

  gun into it, but ain’t no sister I know gonna throw away money.

  Especially me, as bad as I was doing, trying to make it through

  college. If they would have had a student welfare line, I would

  have been the first to sign up. I decided right then and there, I was

  going to give him back his money and big-ass gun, as well as a

  piece of my mind. In doing so, I realized I was falling right into

  his trap, and I kind of wanted to. Life Thugstin was an intriguing

  character. That much I had to admit.

  I needed to get some rest for the show that night. Me and my

  girl, Nandi, hosted a show together called, “ The Panther Power

  Hours.” She was from California and graduated from FAMU a

  few years before. Now she was going to Florida State University to

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  earn her Doctorate Degree. For years the show had been a big

  underground hit. We played nothing but conscious Rap and old

  R&B back when the music was good. Nandi would mix in sound

  bytes of Malcolm X and Farrakhan. She was also real heavy into

  poetr y. Often, she and other poets would per form–that’s what

  gave the show its flavor. On a few occasions, a famous rapper

  would come by.

  As I carried all of my meager luggage to my room, I spoke to

  all my friends. I checked out all the new hairdos and designer

  clothes that I could not afford. FAMU could be like a Black fash-