by Omar Tyree
After a few minutes of feeling nothing, Tracy tried to push him off of her, but Bruce tightened his grip on her body. He continued to do what was meaningless, squirming around in circles and finally tired himself out.
Tracy shoved him away and sat up to think, This boy ain’t know what the hell he was doin’. She figured she had given him a fair shot, and Bruce had grossly disappointed her.
“Put your clothes on,” she demanded, slipping on her own.
Bruce refused. “Naw. I want to see what I got with your light on,” he said, smiling and feeling proud of himself.
Tracy slid on a long, baby-blue nightshirt, refusing to show Bruce her naked body in the light. He then pulled his clothes back on in defeat.
Tracy walked to the top of her steps and froze. “Oh my God! Bruce, it’s my mom!” she said hysterically. Patti had come home earlier than expected. “Hurry up and hide in the closet.” She forced Bruce in before he even had a chance to think. He fell in over all her shoes and under her clothing, which dangled over his head.
Tracy frantically straightened up the room and sprayed air freshener. Patti walked into the house and headed straight for Tracy’s room, knowing that she wasn’t asleep yet. It was a quarter of eleven on a Friday night.
Bruce was crunched and scared, listening in the closet.
“Well, how was it, mom?” Tracy asked. She really wanted to ask why she was back home so early, but she didn’t want her mother to get suspicious.
“It was nice and all. Was Jason all right?” Patti didn’t suspect anything.
“Yeah, he went to sleep like eight-thirty,” Tracy told her.
Patti looked surprised. “He did?”
“Yup.”
“Well, he must have been rippin’ and runnin’ all day, hunh?”
Bruce’s long legs tightened in the closet, feeling severely cramped.
“Mom, I need some new jeans,” Tracy was saying.
“I just bought you two pair.”
Bruce was praying that her mother didn’t walk over to check out her closet.
“Yeah, but I wanted some black ones, ’cause my other ones are too small now.”
Tracy had enough clothes, which were beating Bruce up in the closet. This girl is spoiled as shit, he thought. I pay for my own gear.
Patti finally left for bed after what Bruce thought was eternity. Tracy then snuck downstairs to open the front door. Bruce was dying in the closet, balled up like a snail, when she made it back up to get him.
As she opened the closet door, Tracy whispered, “Come on.”
Bruce struggled to his feet while Tracy hurried him down the stairs. Bruce then fell out on to her lawn, stretching out his legs on the grass.
“What are you doin’?” Tracy asked.
Bruce pouted, “Look, my legs are messed up. Aw’ight? Let me stuff you in a fuckin’ closet.”
Tracy giggled and said, “Get up, boy.”
Bruce did, and headed on his way home.
The cars were shining, the streets were clean, the wind was blowing, the moon was glowing, the grass was shimmering, the sky was filled with stars and the poor were no longer hungry as Bruce jogged home. He was on cloud nine. He was satisfied. He had gotten some. And he couldn’t wait to tell his friend Bucky.
cops-n-robbers
Tracy was wearing the black leather shoes and the Chanel perfume that she had gotten from Bruce as gifts. Bruce came religiously to sit around in her house and in her company, incensing her neighbor Raheema. Tracy was practically through with him after receiving more than four hundred dollars worth of accessories. But Bruce continued to buy her things, hoping that she would stay with him.
“Do you go with Bruce, Tracy?” Patti asked at breakfast.
Tracy drank down a cup of orange juice. “No, mom. We’re just friends.”
“Well, he’s been buying you a lot of stuff lately.”
Tracy grinned and said, “I know.”
“You two don’t like each other in a relationship way?”
“No, mom. God!”
Patti looked at Tracy with a smirk. “You know, using people is not the way to be.”
“Ain’t nobody using him.”
“Okay, but what goes around comes around. Take it from your mother, girl. I know this to be a fact.” Patti warned, walking out of the kitchen.
Tracy thought about her mother’s relationship with her father while heading to school. I’m still young, she told herself. I’m just having fun right now. I’m not gon’ to be dependent on guys all my life, but while I’m young, why not enjoy it?
Tracy entered school that morning with a new project on her mind. Bruce had been conquered.
“Ay Joy, does Timmy still go with that light-skinned girl?”
“No, they broke up weeks ago,” Joy said, frowning at Tracy’s lack of knowledge on the recent gossip.
“You walk my way to class, right, Joy?”
“Yeah,” Joy answered, standing a full head shorter than Tracy.
“Well, let’s walk and talk then.”
“So why you worried about Timmy all of a sudden? You thinkin’ ’bout gettin’ with him or somethin’?”
Tracy answered with a smile, “I don’t know.”
They dodged the other students as they walked through the hallway.
“Well, I wouldn’t get involved with him if I was you, ’cause he’s always in trouble for stealing and stuff.”
“For real?”
Joy nodded. “Yup, girl. Guys be after him all the time. But I like that boy’s eyes though. He got some pretty-ass eyes.”
Wham! Timmy walked out from the boys’ bathroom.
Joy’s eyes popped, surprised to see him. “Speak of the devil,” she said.
Timmy grinned with sparkling green eyes, strolling tall and slim with rusty brown hair. “What, you was talkin’ ’bout me?”
“Yeah, I was just tellin’ Tracy how much trouble you be gettin’ into.”
“Ay, don’t believe her, Tracy, ’cause I wanted to make you my girl.”
Tracy was shocked. Timmy was reading her mind. Things were happening too fast.
“Don’t listen to him. He don’t respect women,” Joy warned, leaving Tracy alone with him.
“So where’s your next class at?” Timmy asked Tracy.
Tracy smiled and said, “Around the hall.”
“Can I talk to you now, Tracy? I’m free.”
“If you want to,” she answered, glancing at his greens.
Tracy had turned down Timmy’s offerings before, but like he said, he was “free,” and she was more than ready to move on from Bruce.
“So what’s your number?” he asked, taking out a pen to write it on a scrap of paper. Timmy was confident she would oblige. And Tracy gave it to him with no hassles. She then asked him for his number before they parted ways to head to their classes.
Timmy, a sophomore, walked down the hall in the opposite direction. He stopped and looked to see if anyone was spying him. An accomplice had told him the combination to the locker in front of him. Timmy got it open and searched through it. He watched up and down the hallway as he took the Polo baseball cap along with a Sony Walkman radio, planning on selling them. Timmy had a second locker to hide his stolen merchandise in until the heat cooled down.
“Ay Tim, what’s up, man?” asked a golden-brown-toned friend, sitting at the long cafeteria tables inside the lunch room.
“You know me, cuz’, I’m just hangin’ in there, makin’ money and things,” Timmy said, taking a seat to join him.
“See that girl right there?” Golden-brown asked, directing with his eyes.
“Yeah,” Timmy said, following them.
“I’d love to be her boyfriend. Forever, cuz’!”
Timmy smiled slyly. “I been hit that, man. She a nice little somethin’.”
“For real? You had her?”
“Her and her girlfriend.”
Golden-brown shook his head, grinning with admiration. “Damn, c
uz’! How you be gettin’ ’em, Tim? Oh, that’s right, you got them green eyes and shit.”
Timmy laughed. “Everybody think I be gettin’ bitches because of my eyes. All my cousins have light eyes, and they don’t get half the ass that I get.”
“So you’re tryin’ t’ tell me that they don’t notice?”
Timmy shook his rusty-brown-colored head. “Naw, I ain’t sayin’ that. You know the girls gon’ notice. But just because I got green eyes, don’t make me get the ass no quicker than the next nigga.”
Golden-brown contested, “Yes the fuck it do. Let me get some hazel-ass eyes. I’d have many and plenny bitches.”
They laughed as the bell rang for the next period.
“DAMN!” Mark Bates shouted after opening his locker.
“What’s wrong, Mark?” the girl with him asked.
“Somebody got my shit!”
His curvy, light-brown companion wanted to laugh, but she held it in. She had slipped the combination to Timmy before first period.
“Well, what did they take?” she asked, faking concern.
“My hat and my Walkman.” Mark thought for a moment. “You know what? That boah’ Timmy is good for stuff like this.”
His curvy-light-brown companion had to cover up. “That green-eyed pussy. Naw, I doubt if it was him.”
Mark thought about it and went with his intuitions. “Yeah, he may be a pussy, but he do be stealin’ shit. That ma-fucka think he slick, but I’ma whip his ass. Watch me.”
Mark walked off and began looking up and down the school halls, stairways and bathrooms, searching for Timmy. He then stormed into one of Timmy’s classes. He cared nothing about interrupting it. Timmy had his shit!
Mark stepped right up to the desk and asked the teacher if he could speak to Timmy out in the hallway.
Timmy looked up from his desk, knowing that it was time to Hollywood, or in other words, to play a perfect role of innocence.
“Well, what about?” the short brown teacher asked. She looked toward Timmy. Timmy frowned at her, expecting conviction.
“I had some things stolen from my locker, and I think he has somethin’ to do with it.”
“What?” Timmy shouted toward them both.
“Dude, I know you ain’t gettin’ loud wit’ me,” Mark said to him.
“Man, people better stop puttin’ my name in shit,” Timmy responded.
“Watch the language, Timothy,” the short brown teacher said.
“Well, can I speak to him outside, in the hallway?” Mark Bates asked again.
“Be my guest,” she agreed. She had never liked Timmy anyway.
“Man, I’on even know what he talkin’ about,” Timmy said, not budging. Shid’, I ain’t slow, he thought to himself.
“What’s the problem in here?” the disciplinarian came in to ask. He just happened to be in the vicinity and heard the confusion.
“Well, this student feels that one of mine has something to do with stealing from his locker,” the teacher answered. She was embarrassed that the disciplinarian had walked in.
He stood solid, light brown, and wearing a suit and tie. His voice boomed with authority. “Which one?”
“Timothy Adams,” the teacher answered nervously. Timmy could accuse her of inappropriate activities. She had agreed to setting him up for a fight.
Suit-and-tie looked at Timmy sternly. “We can get this straightened out in my office.”
Timmy gathered his things, expecting to Hollywood again in the main office. The teenagers walked behind the disciplinarian as he led them to his small office and closed the door. It was a usual event for Timmy. He felt at ease.
“Now what is the problem here?”
“Some things were stolen from my locker, and I think it was him,” slim-brown Mark Bates started.
“Do you have any proof?” Suit-and-tie asked him.
“Naw, but I was gon’ ask him about it to see what he had to say.”
“And you really think he would have told you if he did it?”
“Naw, but he would have said somethin’.”
Mark had no proof and no witnesses, so Timmy started to giggle, feeling that the accusations were ridiculous.
Suit-and-tie asked, “Is something funny, Mr. Adams?”
“Naw. But I mean, he gon’ come out of the blue and say that I took somethin’ from his locker.”
“Oh, cuz’, you ’bout to get punched in your mug,” Mark retorted. He could see that Timmy was pulling a fast one on him. Most thieves are good liars, he told himself.
“Yeah, aw’ight,” Timmy snapped back at him.
Suit-and-tie butted in. “Well, let’s check his locker. And if it’s not in there, then there’s nothin’ left I can do.”
“Aw’ight,” Mark said, getting up from the chair.
Time to Hollywood, Timmy thought. “Hold up, we gon’ check my locker when I ain’t did nothin’. That ain’t even right. What if I just walked up in here and said somebody stole something from me? Are we gonna go check their locker, too?”
Suit-and-tie stood from his big brown desk. “Probably not, but you have a history of accusations, so we’re definitely going to check your locker,” he said, getting in the last word.
The bell rang as they arrived at Timmy’s locker. “G-Town” students, including Tracy, watched out of curiosity.
“Well, it’s not here,” Suit-and-tie announced to Mark.
Mark wasn’t satisfied. “Aw’ight then, but if I find out that he knows somethin’, I’ma break ’im up after school. If he thinks Peppy beat ’em up, watch what I’ll do to him,” he said. Mark was putting on a show for the students who watched.
“Go on back to your classes, Mark. He doesn’t have your things,” Suit-and-tie said.
• • •
Tracy walked home, wanting to hold off from calling Timmy on the first night. She wrote his number in her phone book just as her doorbell rang.
“Who is it!” she hollered from her living-room couch.
“It’s me!”
“Hold on,” she responded, recognizing the voice.
“What’s up, pretty?” Bruce asked from her top step, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses.
“Hi, Bruce,” Tracy said nonchalantly.
“Can I come in?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? NO!”
“Come on now, Tracy, after all we been through, you still won’t bend the roles for me?”
Tracy had stopped letting Bruce in her house when no one was home. She shook her head and walked down her patio steps to the pavement. “Nope.”
Bruce sat, watched and grinned. “You know, I feel good as hell when I’m with you,” he told her, despite her apparent mistreatment of him.
“Why you come here every day?” she asked, giving Bruce a hint. Tracy didn’t want him around anymore. Dag, he must have needed some bad, because he won’t stop bothering me, she told herself.
“I just told you why: you make me feel like nothing else exists in the world.”
Tracy roared with laughter. “You need to go get yourself checked out or something.”
Bruce frowned. “Why I gotta get checked out for feeling that way about you?”
“You don’t have any other girls?” she asked him, glancing at Raheema’s house.
Bruce shook his head. “Naw, ’cause I don’t want any other girls . . . I just want you.”
“You crazy!” Tracy exclaimed.
Bruce got up to walk near her. Tracy ran around him on her lawn and back up her steps.
“Now why you gon’ act stupid like that, Tracy?”
She eyed him crossly from her door. “Look, I gotta go pick up my brother,” she said.
Bruce left her feeling disappointed with himself. He was being played again.
Tracy was bored after picking her brother up from day-care. She stared at her blue phone book while doing her algebra, thinking, Timmy probably has a lot to talk about since he gets into so much. She was still h
esitant to call him on the first night, but she decided, What the hell? He gave me his number to call him, so what’s the difference?
“Hello. Can I speak to Timmy?”
“Yo, it’s me.”
“Hi. It’s Tracy.”
“Oh, what’s up, girl? You musta’ been bored, hunh?”
“No, why you say that?” Tracy asked, embarrassed.
“ ’Cause, why did ’ju call me already?”
Tracy snapped, “Well, I won’t call you. if you don’t want me to. What ’chew give me your number for?”
“Oh, well, fuck you then, ’cause I ain’t the one for sweatin’ bitches anyway,” he blurted out, hanging up in her ear. Joy had warned her from jump-street that Timmy had no respect.
“Ay, I’m sorry about cussing you out. I was in a hyped mood,” Timmy apologized at Tracy’s locker the next day at school.
“Yeah, aw’ight,” Tracy responded, unfazed.
Timmy caressed her gently from behind. Tracy felt his body pressed on her backside. His hands held her waistline perfectly. But she didn’t want him to know that she liked it.
Tracy pushed him away silently.
Timmy chuckled and said, “Oh, not in school, hunh?”
Tracy tried her damndest not to smile. I don’t believe he’s just gonna walk up and be all nice now, she mused.
“Well, you gon’ call me tonight, ain’t you, Tracy?” he asked her.
Tracy faced him, noticing his freshly cut, rusty-brown hair. “So you can tell me off again?” she asked.
“Naw, so I can tell you what time I’m gon’ pick you up for the movies this weekend.”
Tracy cracked a smile. Timmy had caught her off guard. He had nerve, but he was definitely exciting and unpredictable. He was a major change from Bruce.
“So, we goin’ to the movies, hunh?” she asked.
“Yeah, on Friday night.”
“What we gon’ go see?”
“Nightmare on Elm Street: Part Three, or four or five; one of them ma-fuckas. I forgot which one they up to now.”
Tracy laughed. She could not help it. Timmy was funny, too. “Well, what time you plan on goin’?” she asked, losing her apprehension for him.
“Like seven o’clock, but I’ll let you know though.”