“Moolie. That’s Copper River king salmon. Cost fifty dollars per pound.”
The wife said, “But he paid a lot more than that because he had it flown in by private jet.”
“You had the nerve to break in my home and touch my things? You cooked my food?”
Jake Ellis said, “We can let the food finish cooking and eat, or I can take you into the living room and have you stand on the plastic. I don’t give a fuck which way this goes, honky.”
I said, “Enough. Let’s sit, be professional. I understand your point of view, Mr. Garrett. But you know San Bernardino. So let’s try and push refresh on this before it goes off the rails.”
I pulled a chair back and politely asked Mr. Garrett to cop a squat. He took a breath, nodded at his wife as if to say everything would be all right, then put his butt in the chair.
I reached into his pocket and he snapped, “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“I need your phone.”
He took his cell out, slammed it on the marble floor. Jake Ellis took the wife’s cell, rested it on the counter. Mrs. Garrett was confused. I pulled out a chair for her. She sat and then I scooted the chair up. Hands folded in her lap, pristine and proper, she looked at me.
Programmed with good manners, she automatically said, “Thank you.”
My southern programming kicked in and I said, “You’re welcome.”
Garrett commanded, “Don’t talk to my wife. Not one word.”
Jake Ellis sat next to the woman, did that to piss Garrett off. “You’re pretty enough to be the queen of Belgium. You’re Becky with the good hair.”
“Don’t call me that. I hate when people call me that.”
“You’re a model?”
“Thank you. Not a model.”
“Such pulchritude.”
She scrunched her face. “What does that mean?”
“Means you’re beautiful.”
“That word sounds ugly. It sounds like a bad attitude.”
“You’re rocking a sybaritic lifestyle.”
“You know a lot of ten-dollar words, huh?”
“How old are you, about nineteen?”
“Nineteen? No way. Almost thirty-four.”
Mr. Garrett said, “Leave her out of this, and let’s deal with the issue at hand.”
Jake Ellis snapped, “Was I talking to you? When me and my partner are ready to deal with the issue at hand, we will deal with said issue. You ain’t running a damn thang up in here.”
Jake Ellis went back to Mrs. Garrett. He spoke to her in the kindest voice, gave her the Jake Ellis smile as he told her, “Your man is filthy rich. He makes a lot of money, but a woman needs more than capital. I bet he doesn’t give it to you like you want it. I bet you been craving a man who can dip real deep and hit the bottom and all four sides at once. You like a good fucking.”
Mr. Garrett erupted. “Stop talking to my wife like that!”
She shuddered, put her hand to her chest. “Oh my. Oh my sweet Jesus.”
“I bet you hate it because you want to get it the way a real man gives it to a delicate thing like you. Even a little thing like you wants a rough rider, wants to feel like you are more woman than a big woman. I bet he goes limp and dies in the furrow. And I bet you my last dollar you ain’t had good loving since God knows when.”
Mr. Garrett stood and exploded. “Nigger, one more word to my wife and—”
Jake Ellis stood. “Who the hell you talking to in that tone? I know it ain’t me.”
Mr. Garrett’s wife begged him to sit back down, grabbed his arm, pulled him.
Only took a few hot words to set a man like Garrett off.
Jake Ellis said, “Come this way and see how fast you fall down.”
Mr. Garrett barked, “Tough talk doesn’t scare me.”
Mrs. Garrett shivered, made a mousy sound, didn’t blink as she looked at her husband, checked to see if he would stand up like a warrior and be emperor of his stronghold.
I stepped in, said, “Mr. Garrett, have you heard of the Boys of Bukom in Africa?”
“Bukom? Never heard of it.”
“It’s a small slum village on the coast of Ghana.”
“He’s an African. I knew that. He reeks of Ebola. Smells like poverty. Now my house smells like famine and disease.”
“Bukom has produced more champion boxers than anywhere else in the world, per capita, that is. That man you’re disrespecting is a world-class pugilist. My friend trained without headgear, on concrete, not in a ring with a mat that forgives you if you get knocked down, or catches you and lets you bounce if you get knocked out. He trained on unforgiving concrete. He trained to never lose, to never be knocked down, because you fall there, you hit the concrete and get knocked out twice. He trained outside. In Ghana’s heat. No ropes, so they learn to not back down. You’re facing a warrior who has never gone down, not even on one knee, but he’s put many out for the count. He doesn’t know how to lose. He won’t quit until you’re expired or the earth has fallen into the sun.”
Garrett pointed at Jake Ellis and ordered, “African, leave my wife alone.”
Garrett sat back down. When he was seated, Jake Ellis took his seat again.
Jake Ellis winked, yielded a playboy grin. “I think this PYT likes me a little bit.”
“San Bernardino’s issue is with me, not with her.”
Jake Ellis didn’t back off. “I’m being saluted by fat, hard nipples.”
She lowered her head. “Cold. I’m just a little cold.”
“I bet your nipples are as pink as this salmon.”
Mr. Garrett opened and closed his hand. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
Jake Ellis said, “Look at me. Pretty young thang, give me your eyes for a moment.”
She slowly, reluctantly raised her head, then gradually turned her eyes to Jake Ellis.
He smiled at her. She shuddered, then exhaled, and closed her eyes for a moment.
He asked, “You love your husband like Belle loved Kunta Kinte? Or are you his Kizzy? He thinks that money he has and that wedding ring make you property. I think he cares about you the way slave master Tom cared about Kizzy. He’ll turn on you one day. They always do.”
“I’m offended. You don’t know anything about me or my husband.”
“Pretty woman, I know people. I can look in his eyes and see what kind of man he is. He’s old, fat, rich, and white. White men have been horrible to white women all of your lives and you have failed to recognize that, you know that? You were his chattel back in the day.”
“Chattel?”
“You were his chattel and the black man was his slave.”
“I don’t know what chattel means.”
“You were his property. He owned you and didn’t allow you to own nothing, and you still don’t get fair pay. He’s your enemy. Not just mine and the Mexicans’ and the Muslims’, if he’s that kind of colonialist. You think you’re special, because you’re a pretty white woman, but he’s tricked you. White man wants you so he can have white babies, that’s all.”
“We don’t have children.”
“Well, still, I bet he doesn’t respect you.”
“Please, stop talking to me.”
“He respects nobody but other white men. Your man is cut from the same cloth. You’re a trophy that’ll stop looking brand-new after a while, if you haven’t already lost your shine.”
“That’s not nice.”
“You’re a midnight chew toy in high heels and thong. I know what I’m talking about. Man like this, once you reach a certain age, he’ll leave you curbside and bring in the new model.”
“He wouldn’t put me on the streets. Why would you say something as mean as that?”
“He would.”
“He can’t. At least I don’t think he can.
I’d have to review our prenuptial agreement.”
Jake Ellis laughed at her, shook his head. “A prenuptial? Bet he got you good.”
She clenched her jaw. “Why is that funny?”
Jake Ellis shrugged. “Real love doesn’t need no prenup. You have a business arrangement. The contract he made with you supersedes the agreement you have with God. And white men don’t believe in God. They claim they do, they wave Bibles, but their actions are more powerful than their hypocritical words. They believe in some image of a white supreme being. He is worried more about his assets than taking care of where your ass sits. You’ve been played.”
Her nostrils flared, and her lips wanted to move, but no words came out.
Mr. Garrett said, “Not a word, Elaine. Not one more word, woman.”
She shifted, looking angry at Jake Ellis and resentful of her husband for silencing her.
Garrett said, “I want both of you the fuck out of my home. This is not called for.”
I said, “In time. We eat, then chat, and we decide how this goes.”
“I’m not eating. This food could be poisoned for all I know.”
Jake Ellis kept chatting with Mrs. Garrett. “I bet if you leave him before ten years, or if that snowflake decides to file for a divorce behind your back, you don’t get nothing but the clothes on your back and thong in your ass crack. And he can do like Tom Cruise did his Australian wife—”
She said, “Nicole Kidman?”
“Yeah, her. She was blindsided.”
“Is that what happened?”
“They were at the ten-year mark and Tom Cruise dumped her.”
“For no reason?”
“Pussy got old, man went cold.”
“That’s not nice.”
“This fool will probably do the same, dump you before ten years hit, cut his losses, get a younger version of you, and jump up and down on that leather sofa in the living room while you’re somewhere broke, crying your eyes out. You’ll end up on a sofa, in therapy, all broken down.”
Mr. Garrett slapped his hands on the table. “Enough.”
Jake Ellis grinned. “Your husband is a smart man. Plans ahead. He has his hands in the opioid trade, but no one can touch him. Same for fentanyl. It comes in from China with a layover in Mexico before hitting his people in the US, and he’s never involved. But he runs it. Sells poison fifty times stronger than heroin. Drugs that no wall will stop. They come through points of entry, and on planes, trains, and automobiles. You think you matter that much? You are here to make a criminal look respectable. You’re chattel wearing diamonds. When he cuts you loose and time comes to divide the house, he’ll throw you out on the streets and give you what’s outside, while he keeps all of what’s inside to himself. I bet that’s how that contract reads, right?”
“Stop talking to my wife.”
“You ain’t the boss, not while I’m here.”
Mrs. Garrett bounced her leg, terrified.
Jake Ellis said, “Hey, PYT. Look at me for a second.”
Mr. Garrett told her, “Don’t look at him. Ignore him.”
Jake Ellis whispered, “It’s okay. Look at me, PYT.”
Garrett’s wife opened her eyes and regarded Jake Ellis again. She looked at Jake Ellis, and Garrett lost that struggle to control her. She had leaned away from Jake Ellis when she sat, as far away as she could from both of us, the men who had broken into their home and commandeered their kitchen. Now she leaned in his direction, the way you did a confidant.
Jake Ellis said, “Sorry. I got upset, kind of went off the rails a bit. I scare you?”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re staring. Trying to memorize my face for the police or something?”
“Just never seen skin so smooth.” She shrugged. “I bet you have a good dermatologist.”
“Not used to a white woman looking at me like that. I’m used to y’all clutching your purse and dialing 911 just because I’m walking down the street minding my own business.”
She said, “I’ve always thought black men were handsome. One of my good friends is black, and her brother was always trying to get me to let him take me out to the movies and stuff.”
“You had some black man in your bedroom before?”
“No. Never dated anyone black. Or anyone at all. I was an ugly duckling.”
“You don’t have to date a black man or be pretty to have sex with a black man.”
“I never slept with black guys.”
“That’s your rite of passage.”
“Never did. My friends did when they were high or drunk, for fun.”
“Where you from? Vermont? Idaho? Montana?”
“I’m from Compton. Grew up about twenty miles away from here.”
“No, you’re not from the 90220 where they have that sexy-ass mayor.”
“Aja Brown?”
“She’s smart as hell and got sexy on lock.”
“I was born there. Used to live there. Just like Kevin Costner.”
Garrett grunted, shifted, incensed, his finger moving like he had an invisible gun in his hand, and each time he was shooting Jake Ellis, and sometimes he was shooting his wife.
“You’re from Compton and you never dated a black man?”
“I told you I didn’t.”
“You have a nice body. Nice bottom. Sure you’re not black and passing for white?”
“Two white parents. Four white grandparents.”
“White as far as you know. Lot of folks were passing and took that secret to the grave.”
“My husband jokes and says that when he saw me at work, he thought I was a black girl until I turned around. That happened a lot; still does, especially if I had my hair in French braids and had been to the beach and had been out in the sun for a long time. I can get a real nice tan. My nickname at work was Apple Booty. I used to play beach volleyball. Loved it. Working out in the sand makes your core strong and booty tight. Black girl at my job gave me that nickname.”
“The nickname fits.”
“I’m not racist. I have black friends. And Dickie Bird can’t be racist. He has slept with black women. You can’t kick it with, or sleep with, black people and be racist.”
“Heart can be racist, the message never makes it south to the dick.”
“For a burglar, you sure love to insult people.”
“I’m not a burglar. Nothing has been stolen.”
“You talk more than I do. But go ahead.”
“PYT, my point is you and I have more in common than we both realize. The way I see it, we live underneath a global power structure that has an imbalance and creates perpetual injustice and daily stress for anyone who is not white, male, Christian, and heterosexual.”
“In English, please.”
“Colonialists have power on a global level. They are perpetual liars. Ask the Native Americans. Again, I do not have to cite numerous cases and offenses on the continent of Africa.”
She paused, like she had to comprehend what was said, then nodded as if it suddenly made sense to her, then nodded again and asked, “So what’s the solution as you see it?”
“For whom?”
“Africa. Black people.”
“We have to earn the respect of the rest of the world.”
“How does that happen? You seem to be the smart one at the table. How?”
“Colonialists respect nothing, not as a collective. United, they are the locusts of the world.”
“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds horrible.”
“The US and Britain both control by fear. The Middle East used to be stunning, but look at it now. Locusts. What they have done to India, Parliament should all be lined up and shot. The European has imposed his values and bombed all that he couldn’t control. Colonialists have to control or des
troy that which they fear, or the colonialists know the chickens will come home to roost.”
“Well, I pray for peace.”
“Praying fixes nothing.”
“Blasphemy.”
Jake Ellis said, “Until America’s blacks, British blacks, Africans, East Indians, and the West Indians organize, until we can drop bombs at will and do it without apology, until we do like the colonizers, those men who look in the mirrors and think they see angels, until we create our own manifest destiny and are willing to fight and kill and ruin the world to have it, we will stay at the bottom. We could organize, run them all out of Africa, and make them pay for all they stole.”
Mrs. Garrett was rattled. “That sounds crazy. What you said is insanity.”
“And African slavery wasn’t insanity?”
“You’re talking about killing people . . . based on the color of their skin.”
“What a concept. Google ‘lynching in America’ and see who’s the strange fruit.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”
“I am only flipping what colonialists have done, using their playbook, their rules.”
“I don’t believe in all that killing. I’m a Christian. We don’t kill people.”
“You must have a version of the Bible in which Jesus dies of old age.”
“We don’t talk that way. We don’t go around killing people.”
“What were the Christian Crusades if not a murdering spree?”
She was flustered. “You make me feel . . . stupid. I don’t like feeling stupid.”
“That is not my intent. I enjoy spirited conversations with beautiful women.”
Mrs. Garrett fell silent. Looked at her nails, bounced her leg.
Mr. Garrett said, “Woman.”
“Don’t call me that, Dickie Bird.”
He said it harder. “Woman.”
She gritted her teeth. “I’m fine. This woman is fine.”
Jake Ellis said, “This sort of non-Kardashian conversation too heavy for you?”
“I’m not your enemy. I don’t owe anyone any money. I know nothing about drugs.”
“Relax. This is only a conversation. I’m only offering you an intellectual conversation.”
“Well, I’m not intellectual. I’m a pacifist and, yes, I watch the Kardashians.”
Bad Men and Wicked Women Page 5