If it Aint One Thing it's Another

by Sharron Doyle

  Renee called Share’s hospital room and was told she had been discharged. She called Venus and left a message on her voicemail. Finally she decided to call Petie.

  ”Where you been, ma? I’m on my way to the city,” he said.

  ”For what?” Renee asked him. Petie could hear the attitude in her voice.

  ”What you mean for what? So I can see you—that’s for what. What would make you say some shit like that?”

  ”Petie, I went to the clinic today and got my HIV test results. We really have to talk.” Petie already knew what Renee wanted to talk about. He told her that he would meet her at Sylvia’s and she agreed.

  Renee hung up the phone and called the counselor at the clinic. She wanted to know where the support groups were and how she could get connected. She was still in shock after getting her results and finding out that she’d gotten the virus from Petie. She wondered if he knew he was positive. When she told him she’d been tested he hadn’t said anything. He didn’t seem surprised at all, and that bothered her. It made her think that maybe he knew all along. The thought made her sick to her stomach. She rushed to the bathroom and threw up.

  Renee glanced down at the list of support groups that she had written down on a sheet of paper. Then she went to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of green tea. She had decided to change her whole diet. Everything had to change in order for her to stay healthy and live longer. And Renee had more to think about than just her own health; she had to think about Darnell and Dante’s welfare, and she dreaded the thought of having to tell them. How will they take the news? Will they still love me? So many thoughts were going through her mind that her head started hurting. She got on her knees and prayed.

  Renee looked forward to surrounding herself with other women who had the virus. She wanted to find out how they dealt with the disease, and lived with it from day to day and still held on to their sanity.

  Renee was totally disgusted with Petie, even by the sound of his voice. She couldn’t wait to take her sons to go and live with her mother in Pennsylvania. She should have left Petie’s ass years ago, she thought, but she chose not to for the sake of the boys. Now she had good reason to, but first she wanted him to know that she had met with Share and knew everything. Renee wanted Petie to know that she knew all about their erotic affair and that he attacked her after she told him she didn’t want to be bothered anymore.

  Renee hadn’t loved Petie for years, and she had finally hit rock bottom with him. Enough was enough. And maybe if she’d left him years earlier, she wouldn’t be infected now. She decided not to dwell on her diagnosis; what was done was done, and she had to keep herself healthy for the future.

  Petie exited the freeway. He called Renee to tell her he’d see her in about twenty minutes.

  ”Yeah, all right,” she said and hung up. Petie dreaded this day; he knew he’d be having this discussion with Renee sooner or later. He just didn’t know when. He decided to act surprised and just as shocked as she was.

  Petie had been tested for the virus six years earlier. Unable to accept the positive result he got tested three more times, and each time the outcome was the same. He kept it a secret from Renee, continuing to fuck her raw, not realizing that he was re-infecting himself. He just thought he was spreading the virus. Now Renee knew, and he planned to appear devastated by the news.

  He called Ladelle to tell him that he was in the city. He’d swing by to see him after meeting with Renee.

  Renee stepped out of the cab and went inside Sylvia’s restaurant. She saw Petie, already seated at a table, and she joined him. He leaned across the table to kiss her and she turned away. He pretended not to be bothered by it and asked her what she wanted to eat.

  ”Nothing; this isn’t a social dinner, Petie. What you think—I’m stupid?” Renee said reaching inside her pocketbook. She handed him a copy of her test results.

  The waitress came and put a pitcher of water on the table. She asked them if they were ready to order. ”No, not yet,” Petie said, and when Renee turned her head he winked his eye at her.

  ”When you’re ready to order let me know,” the waitress said smiling at him.

  Renee got right down to business. ”I met Share and she told me everything.” Petie pretended to be confused, like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  ”Who the fuck is Share?” he said, sounding so convincing that he almost believed he really didn’t know her. Renee looked at him like he was crazy. Petie tried to speak, but she cut him off. She told him she knew all about the fucking in the ass, and how he got jealous over her new boyfriend and then went and shot up her restaurant.

  ”I went to see her in the hospital. How could you, you sorry son of a bitch! You make me sick!” She rose up from the table, but Petie grabbed her arm and told her to sit back down. She pulled away from him and lowered herself back into her seat.

  ”Let me tell you about that grimy bitch,” Petie said. ”She’ll say anything to see me and you have problems. That bitch said I attacked her? You know how many bitches I got throwin’ the pussy at me? I give pussy away.”

  Renee leaned across the table and slapped him hard. ”I hate you!” she shouted. Several patrons in the restaurant had now stopped eating their food to watch the scene.

  Renee didn’t have time to sit there and listen to the bullshit. She knew Petie was a lying ass. She got up from the table and left.

  Petie followed her out of the restaurant. He told her he couldn’t believe that she was siding with Share over him.

  ”Petie, p-l-e-e-e-a-se stop with all the lies. You’re a no good son of a bitch, and I’ve always known that. I’m really mad at myself because I should have left you a long time ago. I just didn’t want to take your sons away from you. I know how much they mean to you.” Petie started to say something, but Renee continued on. ”Shut up, damnit! I’m taking the boys and I’m leaving. I don’t want them around you. You ruin lives, Petie, and I won’t allow you to ruin theirs. I’ll be damned if I let you corrupt them any more than you already have,” she said and walked away. Petie stood there watching her for a moment, and then he bounced.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Kalif waited to see the judge. He was in a holding pen with other detainees who were also about to be arraigned.

  At first he wouldn’t go into the bullpen when the guards had taken off his handcuffs; the other detainees didn’t look right to him. They all looked like worms with do-rags.

  Kalif began to scream. ”Aaaaaaahh...no! No! No!” The guards jumped back and looked at one another. Kalif continued to scream and hold his head. The niggas in the bullpen didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with him. They didn’t know that he was on his last dust trip.

  The correction officers called for back-up to get Kalif inside the pen. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around the bars from the outside that they had to be pulled off one by one. The officers finally got him inside the pen and slammed the gate shut behind him.

  Kalif ran from corner to corner of the pen, screaming like a madman. Finally, he stopped in one corner and stood there with his back to the wall. My God, he thought. Fucken aliens everywhere...do they have three feet?

  One of them was coming toward him now. Kalif started screaming like somebody had his balls in a vice grip. ”Back the fuck up!! N-o-o-o-o!” he screamed in terror. The alien was saying something to him now, but he couldn’t really hear him. All of the other aliens started to laugh. They didn’t know what his malfunction was, and he screamed and yelled until the C.O.’s moved him to another cell.

  Kalif curled up on the floor into a ball and wondered where all the aliens had come from. He wondered how long they had been on the planet and how many of them there were; they seemed to be everywhere. He bet that Lydia had called them on him. He was sure of it. He lay on the floor rocking, waiting for his name to be called.

  Before seeing the judge, Kalif met with his attorney and was told what his charges were. He didn’t understand what was going on. H
e didn’t remember doing any of those things, and when the bailiff called his name and docket number, he jumped at the court officer when he walked up to take him to see the judge. That was the wrong thing to do; he was tackled to the floor and handcuffed so tightly that blood came out of his wrists.

  The district attorney read off the charges against Kalif and asked that he be held without bail. Kalif’s lawyer recommended that he undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine his mental state. The judge agreed, just based on Kalif’s behavior in the courtroom. Kalif was taken back to the bullpen and waited to be transferred to Rikers.

  Petie decided to get a hotel room and stay in the city instead of going back to Roz’s place in Queens. He went to the Fame Hotel on 135th Street and got a room. He didn’t care that the precinct was right down the block; nothing mattered anymore. Renee had him fucked up.

  Petie got upstairs and laid his burner on the bed. He went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror and then wiped his face off with the towel that the rinky-dink hotel had provided.

  It was early, and he still had to see Ladelle to find out what was too important to be discussed over the phone. He lay back on the bed and thought about everything that had happened since he’d come home. All this shit was Share’s fault. She was the one who had started all this shit.

  Petie was definitely in denial. He just couldn’t stand the fact that Share had cut him off. Bitches didn’t cut him off. He cut them off. It was Share’s fault that there was a manhunt going on for him after being home for only two months. If it ain’t one thing it’s another , he thought.

  He tried to call Renee at her sister’s house, but she wouldn’t come to the phone. Then he called Roz in Queens and told her he was going to rest in Manhattan for the night. ”Keep your eyes open, and make sure you make it back here safely—you hear me, baby boy?” she said.

  ”I will. Good lookin’ out, ma—one.” Petie snapped his cell phone shut. He had always been feeling Roz. She was a thoroughbred, and bitches weren’t built like her anymore. Finally he dozed off.

  His cell phone rang, waking him up. It was Ladelle, telling him to meet him by the water. Petie put the burner in his waist and locked the hotel door before taking the steps, two at a time, to go and meet him.

  Ladelle was already parked, and Petie pulled up alongside him and got out of his truck. Ladelle did the same. He didn’t waste any time; he dropped it like it was hot and told Petie about he and Renee.

  Petie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ”What the fuck you mean you and Renee was sexually involved? So you tellin’ me you been fuckin’ my wife, dick? What kind of shit is that?” he asked Ladelle, hoping that this was just a bad joke.

  ”Yo, Petie, man, I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know how the shit happened. It ain’t like one day I woke up and decided I was going to fuck her. Nah, that’s not how it happened. We been doing this for a minute.” Petie looked at Ladelle, wondering if this was his best nigga standing before him or an imposter.

  ”So why you telling me this shit now? You could have kept that shit to yourself, dick.”

  ”Because, after all the shit that done happened with Lydia being taken hostage, my unborn’s life being put in danger and the gunplay at McDonald’s, it was like a wake-up call. Fuck that, dick. I’m trying to live right, and I think I owe it to myself and my unborn to get rid of the dirt in my life. I’m ready to give my life to God. You know what I’m sayin’?” Ladelle said, making a sincere effort to explain to Petie where he was coming from. Petie didn’t say a word, and his back was to Ladelle now.

  Before Ladelle could say anything else, Petie swung back around and put his burner in his face. ”So you played me close all these years, and the whole time you was fuckin’ my wife? Now you want to come clean and give your life to God? Aiight, cool, I’m gon’ help you,” Petie said and pulled the trigger. Luckily, for Ladelle, the safety was still on the gun. In an instant he smacked the gun out of Petie’s hand. He tackled him to the ground and then punched him in the face. Petie head butted him, forcing him backwards. Ladelle jumped back on him and held him on the ground by his throat.

  Ladelle was furious. ”You put a gun to my head? You talkin’ ‘bout all the years we stomped together, and you put a fucken burner in my face, dick?! You was never my nigga, doin’ some shit like that! I’d rather you fucked Lydia than put heat to my grill!” He released his grip from Petie’s throat and then went and picked the gun up from off the ground. He threw it at Petie. ”Do what you gon’ do,” he said. ”You punk muthafucka!!”

  Petie took the safety off the gun and pointed it at Ladelle. Ladelle looked at him and turned his back. He heard Petie cock the gun. ”Yo, dick...dick!” Petie yelled out. Ladelle didn’t turn around. He kept it moving and headed back to his mother’s car. ”Yo, La, act like you don’t hear me and I’ma put two in your back!” Petie shouted.

  ”Do what you gon’ do, my nigga. I’ma pray for you,” Ladelle said before pulling off.

  Petie stood there with the burner in his hand. Ladelle’s words had stung him like a bumble bee. Petie watched him drive out of sight without once looking back.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Petie got back in the Navigator and called Renee. Once again, her sister, Rhonda, told him that she refused to come to the phone. He wasn’t trying to hear that. ”Tell her to get on the phone before I pop up on the doorstep.”

  After a few minutes Renee got on the phone. ”What is it, Petie?” she said.

  ”Who the fuck you wish was calling? Or should I say, who you thought was calling—maybe Ladelle? Huh, bitch? I’m talking to you! You would have run to the phone if it was Ladelle, right?”

  Renee took a deep breath. ”So he told you?” she said.

  ”What you think? You sure as hell didn’t tell me!!” he hollered into his cell phone.

  ”Petie, what do you care? You haven’t paid attention to me in God knows how long. Does it really matter now?”

  ”Fucken right it matters, bitch!! How you sound askin’ me a question like that?”

  ”I was lonely and needed some attention, and you were never around to give it to me. What do you suggest I should have done?”

  ”Not fuck my man, that’s for sure!”

  ”You got some nerve!! You were out fucking anything in tight jeans, and you were never home!! Maybe if you were, I wouldn’t be infected. Now you hold that!! And as far as your clothes go, I’ll bring them to you. Other than that, we don’t have anything to discuss—not now or when I bring you your shit. Now, this conversation is over!!” Renee slammed the phone down before Petie could say anything else. He threw the cell phone onto the passenger’s seat and punched the steering wheel. Shit was closing in on him and he had nowhere to turn.

  He headed back to the hotel to get some rest; maybe that would help him think a little clearer. He saw a cute chick about a block from the hotel and decided what he really needed right now—some pussy. Petie called her over to the driver’s side of the truck. He could look at her and tell that she smoked. At this point in the game it didn’t even matter. ”What’s up?” she said approaching him.

  Your jaws, that’s what’s up, Petie thought. But instead he said, ”You want to hang out?” He looked at her mouthpiece and concluded that she had the right goods. And after just a few seconds, he found out that she was with it. She walked around to the passenger side of the Navigator. When she got in, Petie asked her if she wanted to get something to smoke.

  ”Yeah, I can cop around the corner,” she said. Petie parked the truck, gave her the money and waited for her to come back. He didn’t care if she bounced with his dough and never came back; he had shit on the brain.

  The chick returned and got back in the truck. ”My name is Patrice,” she said.

  ”Yeah, aiight, call me Ant,” Petie replied. He wasn’t interested in her name; he just wanted to know what her jaws felt like.

  ”Get in the tub and I’ll be right
back,” Petie said to Patrice when they got to his hotel room. He locked the door behind him and ran down the steps and out onto the street. He went to the corner store and bought beer, cigarettes, soap, toothpaste and a toothbrush, and a douche for Patrice.

  When Petie got back upstairs, Patrice was on the bed with her feet propped up on a couple of pillows. She lay spread eagle with the stem in her hands. Petie took a good look at her and saw that she wasn’t too bad. She wasn’t too fat or too skinny. He took the douche out of the bag he was carrying and passed it to her.

  ”You take it in the ass?” he asked her.

  ”Fa sho,” she said. Petie knew they were going to get along just fine now. He took off his shirt and told her to go and douche out her ass. He watched her walk to the bathroom, her ass shaking like Jell-O. She didn’t know that his butt-buster was already hard for her. He sat down on the bed, untied and removed his Timbs, and took off his jeans and boxers.

  Patrice came out of the bathroom, and the look on her face told Petie she was ready. Her eyes roamed his six-pack and the anaconda between his legs. Petie was cut in all the right places with no body fat at all. He had the physique that all men want, and his tattoos made him look even more tempting.

  Patrice fixed herself a hit and blew the smoke on his dick. Petie leaned back and began to stroke himself. ”C’mon, ma, spit on me.” She put him in her mouth and he moved her head up and down. She didn’t have a deep throat, but she knew how to work her jaws. Des was still the best head nurse there was, as far as he was concerned. Patrice sucked his sides and licked his head until she tasted pre-cum in her mouth. Petie was good and brick.

  Patrice got on all fours and moved to the end of the bed. She arched her back and threw her butt in the air. ”Let me see what you workin’ with,” she said. Petie liked that. He knew he was going to have fun with her. He wet her asshole and slapped the tip of his dick on it. Then he applied pressure and entered her. She tried to move forward, but he pulled her back toward him. He lay on top of her and stroked her long and deep as she cried out. He liked her; she sounded like Share. The thought of Share made him mad, and he started to fuck Patrice harder. If he went any deeper, his balls would be in her ass, too.