Whatever It Takes

by Tu-Shonda L. Whitaker

  As soon as I pulled in the parking lot, I saw Mr. Marcus.

  “Hey, Indian.” He waved. “I was just coming to see you.”

  “For what, Mr. Marcus?” I said, getting out of my car.

  “I was coming to see if we were gonna get this New Year’s thing poppin’.”

  “What New Year’s thing?” I frowned, opening my front door.

  “The smoke machines,” he insisted, while following me into the house. “Remember, we ‘spose to set it off for two thousand and six. Remember, ain’t no party like a Marcus Robinson party? You done forgot that quick?”

  “Mr. Marcus”—I dropped my bags on the couch, hung up my coat, and kicked my boots into the closet—”I never agreed on any type of smoke machine, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or any other kind of party with you.”

  He closed the front door and leaned back against it. “Youngblood done left ya?” he asked, smacking his lips. “That’s what this is about? He threw you on that island’s countertop, didn’t he? You wrapped them big legs around him and he did all kinda freaky thangs to you, didn’t he?”

  How does he know that?

  “Oh baby,” Mr. Marcus whined, shaking his body down to the floor and coming back up again. “Don’t stop, don’t ever-ever-ever stop. That’s what you said to him, didn’t you?”

  “Mr. Marcus,” I snapped, with my hands on my hips. “I know you weren’t looking in my damn window!”

  “Indian, I don’t do them thangs. Sandy Jones was the one lookin’. She told me that she saw it all. She said that one time you were even hanging off the edge of the counter, with one leg on the side of his face and the other one damn near touching the floor. Now that’s what I call wide open, Indian.”

  I cannot believe this shit. I knew I should’ve shut the blinds! The entire fuckin’ town house complex probably saw me gettin’ my freak on.

  “You’se a freaky-deaky lil’ thang. I like that.” Mr. Marcus moved my bags out of his way, sat his bald-headed ass on my couch, and crossed his legs. “You got a cigarette, Indian?”

  “No!” I snapped.

  “Don’t lie to an old man, now. I see the cigarettes sticking out your purse right there.”

  “Take the whole goddamn pack, Mr. Marcus!”

  “You got an attitude, Indian?” he said, taking the cigarettes and then reaching back into my purse for the pack of matches.

  “In-di-a!” I yelled, “In-di-a! In . . . di . . . a! Don’t call me a fuckin’ Indian no more!”

  “Ain’t no need for you to get mad, like I told you before, I’ma grown ass man, dawg,” he said, taking a drag. “If you want me to leave, all you gotta tell me is, ‘Bust a move, Mr. Marcus. Bust a ma’fuckin’ move.’ Now, truthfully, you ain’t got no reason to be mad. Sandy Jones the one who should be pissed.”

  “Mr. Marcus, I don’t even know Sandy Jones.”

  “You don’t know Sandy?” he asked, perplexed with his eyes squinted tight. “Humph. Well, she sho’ ‘nough know you. Front, back, and side. That’s why she’s jacked up now. Called me over there. Lured me with some smothered pork chops, knowing damn well I ain’t ‘spose to eat pork. And the next thing I know, her old ass is spread-eagle on the countertop! Blew my mind, Indian! Blew my mind.”

  I couldn’t believe this. “What did you do?”

  “Hell, I showcased some skills. I put it down, ya heard. This old freak ain’t had no action since his wife died. Hell, Sandy had them legs open—and she’s a big girl so she had that extra meat smack-dab in the middle of her thighs—I snuggled my ass in between there, my pants and my briefs around my ankles, my socks pulled up to my knees, and her legs thrown over my shoulders. Now, Indian, Big Daddy was taxin’ it. Tearin’ that ass up like it was a part-time job!”

  “Yeah, one you’ve been laid off from,” I mumbled.

  “What you say, Indian?”

  “Nothing.” I was sick to my stomach. I thought I would die, just envisioning his wrinkled ass stroking somebody.

  “Well, let me tell you what happened next.” He took a pull of his cigarette and blew the smoke from the corner of his mouth. “She got mad.”

  “Why’d she get mad, Mr. Marcus?”

  “ ’Cause after five minutes, I was done. I’m sixty-six years old. What the hell I look like? I need my damn energy. She’s lucky she even got up on Big Daddy. Well, she put me out and told me not to ever come back. You should’ve seen her. Now imagine she gonna put me out, and she got more bullet holes in her ass—”

  “Bullet holes?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She got dents in her ass. I call ‘em bullet holes and she got more of ‘em than a shootin’ range board. She really oughta be glad that I even came near that.”

  “Okay, I’ve heard enough. Mr. Marcus you should be ashamed of yourself! An old man like you gettin’ ya freak on, and on top of somebody’s island where they put their food on!”

  “You got nerve Indian—”

  “Bust a move, Mr. Marcus, bust a ma’fuckin’ move!” I pointed to the door. “Go home.”

  “Bust a move, huh?” Mr. Marcus said, shocked, while standing up. “Marcus Robinson got to leave?”

  “That’s what I said.” I knew I was hurting his feelings but he had worked my last nerve. I’d find him tomorrow and apologize but as for now I wanted him out. I opened the front door and Devin was standing there with his finger on the bell. He was looking so good that I wanted to place a red bow on his head and save him for Christmas. He had on a pleated and cuffed pair of camel-colored dress pants. The cuff of his pants fell slightly over his Prada loafers. He also had on a thick ecru-colored, braided turtleneck, with a long brown cashmere trench coat. Devin looked so good that I wasn’t even mad with Mr. Marcus anymore.

  “Hey, baby,” he said, giving me a kiss on the lips. Don’t ask me why but I had to fight with my legs so they wouldn’t gap open.

  “You’re early,” I said, giving him a hug and taking in the smell of his cologne.

  “I know. I hustled a little and the train was on time. So I was able to run home, get my truck, and come straight here.”

  “You should’ve brought clothes for the night.” I winked. “I would’ve made sure you got to work on time.”

  “You never know.”

  “Never know what?” Mr. Marcus interrupted. Damn, I almost forgot he was standing here. “Didn’t I tell you to bust a move?”

  “Oh, you just gonna do me dirty? Here I’ve been good to you all these years and this is what you do to me?”

  What did he say? “Mr. Marcus, please. Don’t try and make it seem like we were a couple.”

  “So what was I? A booty call?”

  “Bust a move,” I snapped. “Bust a ma’fuckin’ move!”

  “It’s all good,” Mr. Marcus said, walking out the door. “Youngblood,” he called to Devin. “That’s yo’ black Expedition?”

  “Yeah,” Devin said. “What about it?”

  “Make sure don’t no lights get knocked out!”

  “He’s kidding, right?” Devin said, as Mr. Marcus hopped along. “That was a joke?”

  “Don’t worry about Mr. Marcus,” I said, kissing him softly.

  “What should I worry about?” he said, responding to my kisses and closing the front door behind him.

  “Me?” I leaned over the arm of the couch and pulled him with me. I thought we would’ve landed on the cushions, but we rolled to the floor. “Damn, baby, don’t attack me.” He laughed.

  “I’ve been thinking about you all day,” I said.

  He was lying flat on the floor and I was straddled across his lap. He sat up a little and took his coat off. He lay back down on the floor and I pulled his sweater off him, revealing his glued-tight wife-beater. He pulled me close to his chest as I went to unbuckle his pants. “I want to talk to you,” he said, his hands palmed on my behind.

  “About what?”

  “Do you think it’s possible to love someone after just a weekend of being with them?”

&nb
sp; Did he say “love”? “Why, Devin?” I asked with a serious face.

  “Because that’s how I feel.”

  “Are you for real?”

  “I’m as real as it gets.” We both sat up, but I was still straddled across him. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said, looking directly in my eyes. “Hell, I even smell your perfume when you’re not around. I want to be with you all the time.”

  “Love, Devin? I don’t know if this is love . . . already,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Damn, India. Why do you have a time frame on love? Just go with it.”

  “I don’t have a time frame. But it’s too soon.” I can’t believe we’re holding this conversation. I mean, I want to be in love and I want him to be the one . . . but I’m not sure if I’ll know what to do if I’m not by myself anymore. “Sweetie, I like you. I know that I miss you, I keep thinking about you. I get butterflies when I’m around you. But love you, after a weekend together? I’m not sure about that. This is the honeymoon stage. What happens a month from now, a year from now, when things change? And what about Joan?”

  “I don’t want to talk about my mother,” he snapped.

  “She’s a part of this.”

  “See, that’s your problem,” he said sternly. “It’s too much about other people. My mother has her place and this ain’t it . . . at least not at this moment. Now, back to your question about what happens a month from now or a year from now. I can’t answer that and neither can you. We could be married and you could be pregnant in a year. Or we could part ways and never see each other again, after a month. But what I know is that right now what I feel is real . . . and I can’t imagine it going away.” He kissed me on the lips. “As bad as I want to make love to you, I say we don’t tonight. Let’s talk, nothing else.”

  “Talk? We can talk in about an hour.” Shit, can’t he feel the pulse in my coochie racing? Humph, we can talk after I get a nut. Hell, I have been talking all day.

  “No, we won’t talk and you know it. India, I’m feeling the hell out of you. And that’s real.” He was holding my face in the palms of his hands. “We have the rest of our lives to make love to each other. But I want to get to know you now.”

  “Well, what do you want to know?” I said, getting off his lap and sitting with my knees hunched up to my chest.

  “Tell me,” he said, sitting with his back to the couch. “What makes you smile, makes you cry, makes you laugh, and then tell me what you dream about the most. Afterward, we’ll go from there. . . .”

  “Okay, let’s see,” I said, sliding over and placing my head on his shoulder. “Where do we begin . . . ?”

  * * *

  I watched him breathe for about an hour last night. He fell asleep with his head in my lap. I gently laid his head on the floor, unbuckled his pants, and hit him off with a 68. Now when he comes here after work, he owes me one—that’ll make it a nice and nasty 69. I called Tracy at six o’clock this morning after Devin left here to go to work.

  “Tracy,” I whispered. Why I was whispering I don’t know, because nobody else was here but me.

  “What, girly-girl? What happened? You saw me out last night with that bum niggah who lives down the street?”

  Damn, Tracy sounds a lil’ rough this morning. I could’ve sworn she asked me about somebody who lives down the street. “What, Tracy?”

  She cleared her throat, “Yeah, girl. Rasul Williams.” As she said that, her voice went high pitch and started to crack. That’s when I knew it wasn’t Tracy on the phone. “Ju-Ju! Get yo’ ass off the phone!” I yelled. Oh, I can’t stand his ass!

  “How you know it was me?” He laughed.

  “Anyway,” I said, ignoring him, “don’t you have to get ready for work? Oh, I forgot, you don’t have a job. Now put Tracy on the phone.”

  “You gon’ get enough of calling my house all early in the morning. Tracy, Stuck-up on the phone.”

  “Hey, girl,” Tracy said picking up the line.

  “He’s crazy, Tracy. I swear he is.”

  “I know, girl. Believe me, I know. Wassup? You drop it like it’s hot to your CDs last night?” She laughed.

  “Girl, I think I’m in love.”

  “In love?” I could tell she was smiling. “Oh shit, did he pass the dick test?”

  “He passed it girl. I waited for him to fall asleep and I hit him off lovely. I was counting to ten in my head and by the time I got to three, my cheeks blew up like I had jawbreakers in my mouth!”

  “Goddamn! That’s dangerous, that mofo’ll have you pregnant just by cumming down your throat.”

  “Tracy, you are nasty!” I was disgusted.

  “No I ain’t,” she snapped. “I’m just keepin’ it real. Another thing. Joan called me complaining last night about how D.J. stayed out again. She thinks he’s back to sneaking around with the nineteen-year-old hoochie.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, why don’t you call her house and hang up a few times, this way she’ll think it’s the nineteen-year-old for real.”

  “Tracy, that nineteen-year-old is the least of my worries.”

  “What’s your worry?” she asked.

  “How can I be falling in love, not only with a twenty-three-year-old, but within a weekend? Am I crazy?”

  “Girl, India, just let yourself go.”

  “I can’t, Tracy, I just can’t.”

  * * *

  “Y’all know,” Joan said into a stream of smoke, “D.J.’s been out every night since Black Friday and yesterday made a month.” She twisted her lips and crossed her legs.

  In the midst of Christmas shopping, Joan, Tracy, and I were having lunch at Papa Razzi, a restaurant inside the Mall at Short Hills. Truth be told, I wanted to slap Joan in the mouth. All she’d been doing was complaining about how Devin was never home anymore and how she couldn’t seem to catch up with Devin Senior either. It was on the tip of my tongue to say, Get the fuck over it, Joan. They’re both getting some ass, don’t you understand?

  “India,” Joan said, taking a drag, “do you think I can get my digital camera back anytime soon? I found this receipt for a suite in the Embassy over in Manhattan and it’s got Devin Senior’s name on it.”

  “How do you know it’s for him?” Tracy asked, circling her spaghetti around her fork. I kicked her under the table. “I mean, it’s a shame that he would do such a thing,” she said.

  “Ain’t it though?” Joan complained. “But not to worry because I’ma pound this ma’fucker in the head this time. The Embassy Suites will never be the same. And I promise you that.”

  “Joan,” I said, in between bites of my salmon, “Christmas is Saturday, take it down. Maybe he has something special planned for the two of you.”

  “Girl, paleeze.” She rolled her eyes. “I know his ass and he’s a slick one. Trust me. Now D.J. is another one that’s working my nerves. At first, I thought he was sneaking around with the nineteen-year-old hoochie. But I don’t think so anymore. I think it’s a wrinkled-pussy old bitch he’s laid up with. The stank ass.”

  Did she just call me a wrinkled-pussy old bitch? I looked at Tracy for confirmation and she was gagging on spaghetti. “Joan,” I snapped, “why does she have to be a wrinkled-pussy old bitch? Damn, that’s a lil’ harsh, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No it’s not harsh, she’s a wrinkled . . . pussy . . . old . . . bitch, and when I catch her I’ma check her chin.”

  I don’t think so.

  “Let me tell you how I know she’s old,” Joan continued. “D.J.’s going to jazz clubs, all of a sudden he’s got silk boxers, fruity bath oils, and shit. The other day I found a Victoria’s Secret bag with some lingerie in it and it certainly wasn’t for me.”

  “It wasn’t for him, was it?” Tracy snickered.

  “Hell no—” slipped out my mouth. Joan looked at me like I was crazy. “I mean I hope not. He’s so endowed—meaning he’s so handsome. What I’m trying to say is that I hope he didn’t buy the shit for himself.”<
br />
  “No, it wasn’t for him,” Joan assured us. “It was for some fat-ass heifer. I can’t remember the size, but if I wanted to I’m sure I could have used it for a lace comforter set.”

  Oh no she didn’t! Hold me back, God, because in a few minutes I’ma drop-kick this bitch! “Joan, yo’ ass is being a bit extra,” I said, trying to talk myself into being calm. “Devin is grown and trust me, he’s far from being a little boy, so let it go. And just for the record your pussy doesn’t wrinkle until you get in your forties.”

  “Are you trying to insinuate something about me, India? I’m the only one here in my forties?”

  “Well, hell, you put the shit out there. Who the fuck thinks of a wrinkled pussy? That’s disgusting! And you should hope that your son has better taste than to be screwing some fat-ass, wrinkled-pussy old bitch!” I slammed my fist into the table. That’ll teach her to call me out my name!

  “Well don’t you sound awfully sure of yourself? But I know the bitch is old. Devin comes home the next afternoon after being out all night. What lil’ young broad can have a lil’ boy lay up in her parents’ house all night and into the afternoon? Not a one. Then when the weekend comes and he claims he’s going out, he’s dressed to the nines. Hugo Boss suits, Kenneth Cole, Jack Spade, and shit—that’s an old bitch. Don’t no young chick want his ass sitting around her like he’s dressed for church.”

  I looked at Joan, gave her the screw face, and said, “Whatever.”

  “So . . .” Tracy said, giving me a look like I had lost my damn mind, “anything special planned for Christmas?”

  * * *

  “What’s the problem, India?” Devin asked, taking it upon himself to slide the straw I was sucking on out of my mouth. We were sitting at a small round table in the corner of Diva’s Lounge while the spoken word artist recited a poem. The room was dimly lit and filled with light clouds of smoke. Most of the people were nodding their heads and jamming to the poetry as if it were club music.