by Carl Weber
When Keisha came back into the kitchen, she had lost a little of her attitude and reminded me sweetly that we still had some unfinished business to take care of. I made a halfhearted attempt to get her off using my tongue, since I was sure I wouldn’t be able to get it up again. As she reached her final, screaming peak, the answer to my problems finally hit me. I said my goodbyes late that night knowing that I would be back the next day to search for Keisha’s diary.
So that’s how I found myself skipping work and letting myself into my woman’s apartment. First, I went through the nightstand where she used to keep her diary, but it wasn’t there. She’d kept her diary in this same place for all the years I ’d known her. If I wasn’t sure she was keeping secrets before, I was now. You move something from the place it’s been for years and that’s gonna raise a red flag.
I started digging deeper, checking under the bed, in the closet, in shoe boxes. Hell, I even looked in her Tampax box in the bathroom. I searched through her jackets in the closet, thinking I might find some receipts or a phone number scribbled on a slip of paper. But I didn’t see anything. I was starting to think my plan was a bust, but then it hit me: the strongbox where she kept her valuables. It had to be there.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I hadn’t heard Keisha come in, but there she stood, hands on hips and breathing fire.
“I’m looking for your diary.” It didn’t make any sense to lie, especially since this whole thing was about lying. I turned to face her.
“What do you want that for?”
“I wanna know the truth. I wanna know if that was the only time you were with Omar.”
“I told you the truth.”
“Well, I wanna see for myself. If I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to apologize.”
“What are you trying to say, that I’m lying?” She looked pissed, like I ’d betrayed her instead of it being the other way around.
“I’m not trying to say anything until I see that diary.”
“Sometimes when you go looking for shit, you’ll find shit. Didn’t your momma tell you that?”
“So is that it? Am I going to find something if I read your diary?”
“This is stupid, Darnel.” She avoided the question, which only made me more suspicious. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work? I knew you was up to something when I passed your car. Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize your truck?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I countered. “Unless you came home to meet someone for a booty call.”
She waved her hand at me. “You’re acting crazy, Darnel.”
“You think? My woman slept with my best friend on the night before our wedding, and I’m acting crazy?” Keisha turned away and started to walk out of the room. “Don’t you walk away from me,” I said sternly.
I reached out and took hold of her wrist. She tried to pull away, but I was possessed or something, because I didn’t loosen my grip at all.
“Get off of me, Darnel.” Her voice sounded angry, but I could tell she was scared.
“I wanna know what’s in that diary!” I screamed, no longer in control of my emotions. “Tell me!”
“Get your hands off me, Darnel!”
“Tell me!” I pulled back my other hand, not even realizing it was balled into a fist.
“So you gonna get all nigga on me and we gonna go through this violent shit again, just like that night at the hotel, aren’t we?” She turned to face me, jutting out her chin defiantly, daring me to hit her. My hand dropped as if someone had just placed a heavy weight into it.
“So what was it? Did Omar have a bigger dick than me?” I spit the words at her like a weapon meant to destroy anything left between us. I just didn’t care anymore. An image of them going at it was permanently seared on my brain, and I couldn’t be held responsible for the things it made me do.
“Darnel, stop!”
Unfortunately, I was past the point of letting up. I had to know, and I wasn’t thinking about the cost.
“Did he fuck you better than me? Did you like sucking his dick more?” I screamed at her. “Did you even think about the fact that you would just be another notch on his player’s belt? I bet you liked feeling like a whore!”
She stood in front of me, tears falling, but I didn’t give a shit. She deserved worse.
“This is stupid.” She had the nerve to turn like she was walking away.
“What is? Finding out my woman is a cheap tramp? Is that what you’re calling stupid?”
“I’m not gonna let you treat me like shit.”
“Just tell me the truth!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
“You can’t handle the truth.” I saw this blazing fire in her eyes, and it was on.
“Don’t tell me what I can handle, Keisha. You screwed up our lives, and now you owe me the truth.”
“Fine.” She swiped away the tears from her cheeks and stood in a defensive posture, glaring at me. “You want to know the truth? Just remember you asked.”
I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms, waiting for her to speak.
She huffed like I was inconveniencing her, but when she figured out I wasn’t backing down, she dropped her bomb on me. “The truth is, Omar fucked me like I was a woman—not like some precious object he was afraid of breaking. I wanted to know what it was like to have someone put it on me. Dammit, Darnel, I wanted to get slayed, just one time.”
I ’d always treated Keisha gently—I made love to her instead of just screwing her. I thought that was something any woman would appreciate. As if it weren’t painful enough to find out I was wrong, she kept throwing more words at me, and they hit like daggers in my heart.
“And, yes, he did have a bigger dick, and he wasn’t afraid to use it. And guess what? I could handle it. I liked it.”
“That’s because you’re a whore.” I looked around for something heavy to pick up. I wanted to throw something at her, maim her, slap that smirk off her face. “You’re a damn whore and I hate you!”
“Get out! You can’t talk to me like that.” She headed toward the front door. I followed behind her, still attacking her with my questions.
“So who else you been screwing? You don’t think I really believe that Omar’s the only dick you fell on, do you? I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
She stopped in front of the door and turned to face me. “Neither do I. I just know that there are some things in life that can’t be fixed, and maybe this is one of those things.”
Her statement stunned me silent for a moment. I thought everything had gone back to normal for Keisha, but now she was telling me that she thought the same thing I ’d been thinking—that maybe our relationship was truly beyond repair.
“I just wish I could stop loving you,” I told her, and it was the truth. What was it going to take to be able to walk away from her?
“Maybe love just isn’t enough to get from where we are to where we want to go.”
“And where is that?” I wanted to hear it from her, because I was so confused at this point, I didn’t really know what I wanted or where I wanted us to go.
“I don’t know, Darnel, but I think we need to let this go.”
“What?”
“I have to let it go.”
Out of nowhere, my eyes filled with tears. “Is there someone else?”
“Darnel, this isn’t working. Maybe one day it will, but that day isn’t today.”
“Just let me read the diary,” I said, feeling desperate. As angry as I was, I ’d never really allowed myself to imagine life without Keisha. Now she was forcing me to, and I wasn’t ready. “Put it all on the table and we’ll just deal with it.”
Keisha opened the front door. “My diary is my personal thoughts and feelings. No one gets to read it until I’m buried and gone.”
“Buried and gone, huh? That can be arranged,” I threatened, surprising myself as much as her with my sudden aggression. I would never hurt her, but why wouldn’t
she just do what I needed her to so we could get back to our old selves? “Now, give me the damn diary.”
“You wanna know what can be arranged?” she spat back, the look of surprise and shock glued to her face. “What can be arranged is your ass going back to jail for violating an order of protection. Now, get the fuck out my house before I call the cops.”
For now, she had delivered the knockout punch, and the fight was over. I did as I was told and walked out of the apartment. But one day, she was going to pay.
James
18
“Boy, what are you doing? Clean this place up. I didn’t leave my house like this.” I was fire funky hot when I returned home from church service and a quick visit with one of my lady friends. It was only one o’clock in the afternoon, and my house smelled like a distillery. Darnel had emptied countless beer cans, and liquor bottles were scattered all over the place.
I coughed as I fanned the alcohol fumes away from my face. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I yelled, but he just stared into space.
I walked over and cut off the CD player, which had been playing another sad, old-school love song, the kind he’d been listening to constantly. I took a good look at my son. He’d now sunken to a new low.
“You’ve got court tomorrow. You need to get your stuff together.”
“Leave me alone. I don’t give a damn about going to court. My life is already ruined. I just wish God would end it, for Christ’s sake.”
His despondent tone took me off guard, and I softened my demeanor. This was more than just Darnel feeling sorry for himself. This was a genuine depression, and he didn’t need me attacking him right now. “Don’t talk like that, son. You have a lot to live for.”
Darnel waved his hand lethargically. His eyes were glazed and vacant-looking. I really didn’t like that stare in his eyes. I hated to admit it, but it was almost a deranged look, like he’d had some type of breakdown or something.
I pushed that thought out of my head. No, this was my son, who would never hurt a fly … or himself. He’d always been a gentle person. He was just going through a rough patch.
“Listen, this is all gonna pass, son.”
He sat back in his chair. “You don’t understand. I just feel so stupid. How do I go on?” Darnel stared down at his hands, then pulled his balled fists up to his forehead. “Everybody knows.”
“No, they don’t. And if they do, so what? You just got to take it one day at a time.” I tried to touch his shoulder in comfort, but he jerked away from me.
“That’s easier said than done. She may be a whore, at best a bitch, but I still love her. I know I sound like a fool, but I do.”
“You know, like that old song by the Spinners goes, ‘it takes a fool to learn that love don’t love nobody.’”
“I never knew what that song meant, and I don’t care what it means. Maybe, then, I’m just a fool. All I know is I still love Keisha.”
I didn’t know what to say that would make a difference. I could talk ’til my teeth fell out, but I couldn’t make his heart stop loving that woman. I made a lame attempt to redirect his thoughts. “You need to get up and keep moving on with your life. In the meantime, why don’t you go take out Sandra—that girl your sister introduced you to?”
“Why? So she can tell Jamie all my personal business? No thanks.”
I tried to sound casual as I said, “Why don’t you give her a call? Ask her out to lunch. My treat.”
Darnel just shrugged. “I’ve talked to her. She seemed a little too high maintenance for me.” Then he added with a little too much attitude in his voice, “If she’s so nice, why don’t you have lunch with her? I don’t need you to set me up with anyone, and I don’t need Jamie’s help either.”
“Son, we all need someone’s help at some time.”
“Not me. I don’t need anyone’s help. Not unless you got a gun and you let me borrow it so I can shoot both Keisha and Omar in the head.”
“Darnel!” I ’d heard a lot of shocking things in my lifetime, but never anything like this out of my own son’s mouth. “Don’t talk like that.”
“So I guess you can’t help me,” he said, and it didn’t sound like a joke.
The next thing I knew, he stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind him. I heard his tires screech out of the driveway, and I cringed, shaking my head.
Lord, help him, I prayed.
After I calmed down, I decided to clean up the living room and freshen up a bit. I threw out the empty beer cans and liquor bottles and sprayed air freshener.
I thought about what an old woman told me when I was young: “A woman is like a trolley car. There’ll be another one along shortly.” I wished it were that simple for Darnel. I ’d been around long enough to know that the old woman’s wisdom was correct. When one woman isn’t worthy of your love, another one who’s ten times better will always come along sooner or later. But Darnel was too inexperienced to know this. He’d just had his heart ripped out by the first and only woman he’d ever loved, and he couldn’t see past that to believe that sometime down the line, the right woman would walk into his life and make him forget all about Keisha.
Until he met the one who would take her place, what could I do for his broken heart? It killed me to see him in this kind of pain. He was still struggling to understand how Keisha could do him like that. I wanted to tell him, “You just can’t love that hard, son.” I guess he was like his mother in that respect, pouring his heart into a losing proposition.
As I put the finishing touches on my now clean living room, I heard the doorbell ring. I opened the door to find Sandra standing there. I tried not to notice how sexy she looked, young woman or not; I couldn’t help but to admire her sexy top, which clung to her perky breasts without being too risqué, and some curve-hugging jeans that accentuated her hips perfectly.
“Hey, Sandra. I’m sorry to tell you, but you missed Darnel again.” I hadn’t gotten on Darnel the last time he stood her up, but this was getting ridiculous. I was going to have to talk to him this time—or so I thought, until Sandra let me know that wasn’t her reason for stopping by.
She shrugged her shoulders with a coy smile. “That’s okay, ’cause to tell you the truth, I didn’t come to see him. I came to see you.”
“Me? Why?”
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, like she was trying to gather the courage to say something. “Mr. Black … I mean, James, would you like to go to the Lakers–Nets basketball game with me tonight?” She extended her hand with two tickets.
Did she just ask me out on a date?
She stood looking at me expectantly, and before I had time to remind myself of all the reasons why I shouldn’t be going out with a woman young enough to be my daughter, I heard myself saying, “Sure.”
I walked around to open the car door for Sandra, who slid into the passenger’s seat, giving me a look of pure availability.
James, you don’t want to go there. You do not want to go there, I repeated to myself like a mantra.
This girl knew exactly what she was working with. Unlike a lot of women, she showed just enough to let me know everything was where it should be. Each time I glanced to the side, I could see her giving me her full attention.
Finally, I pulled into a parking garage near the Meadowlands. I turned my attention to her and got to the heart of the matter. “What’s this all about anyway?” I held up the two tickets she’d bought.
“It’s tickets to the game.” She gave me a look that was both innocent and devilish at the same time. “What does it look like?”
“So …,” I started, hoping to give her one more chance to tell me this was not a date. “Is this your way of thanking me for that game and dinner? Because you didn’t have to do this.”
“I like you.” She stared straight into my eyes, not blinking or turning away.
“Yeah, but I mean, these couldn’t have come cheap.” Again, I showed her the tickets. “They’re floor sea
ts.”
“Maybe we’ll sit near Jay-Z.” Sandra leaned closer so that I could smell her Creed perfume, a light, woodsy scent.
“Yeah, but … wouldn’t you have preferred to go to the game with Darnel?”
I kept trying to offer her excuses to back out before we started something we would both regret, but she didn’t want to go that way.
“No, it’s you I wanted to go to the game with,” she said very frankly.
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
“I like you, too, but—”
“No, James, you don’t understand. I like you … like, romantically.” And there it was. She had put all her cards on the table, and now I didn’t have a clue what to do. I was not trying to go there with her, but she was making it so damn hard to resist. The way she was staring at me, I think if I wanted to, I could have done her right there in the car.
“I’m not a one-woman man,” I told her, just as I ’d done to all the women who had come before her.
Usually, I explained this to a woman once I knew we were heading toward the sex zone, but this time I was hoping it would be like a repellent, and Sandra would realize this was just a schoolgirl crush. Of course, she wasn’t looking like any schoolgirl that I knew. She was up to no good.
The reason I ’d been doing all right with women my whole life was that I knew what situations to avoid, and this one was waving a big red flag. It was a Lost in Space, “Danger, Will Robinson” type of moment, and I wasn’t trying to go against my instincts.
“I’m not a one-woman man,” I repeated.
“Not yet.” She held my gaze, a tiny smile curving up the corners of her mouth. Her confidence was damn sexy.
I decided to take another tack with her, because as sexy as she was, I was afraid I felt my resolve weakening. For God’s sake, I kept reminding myself, this was my daughter’s friend. She couldn’t be older than twenty-three, twenty-four.