Life

by Sullivan, Leo

  “Once you’ve been exposed to the game, money and power, nothing else will do! My daddy taught me a lot. He also said ain’t no drug dealer got no business in the game over a year. Ain’t no future in fronting. People that sell get hooked just like the people that buy.” She stopped talking to catch her breath. I was admiring her brain like she just submitted a verbal application to me, “Gangsta Bitch For Hire.” She bragged, resting her head on my chest. “Papi, I’m claiming you.” Her head went under the covers and she took me into her mouth. Trina could suck a dick. As her tongue worked its magic on my body, I wondered, is she just one of them bitches sweating me for my cheddar, thinking I can make her life better? I ran up in her after she finished giving me head. We did it until the sun came up. She paralyzed me with her body and afterward, she rested her head on her elbows and watched me until I fell off to sleep.

  *****

  The next day I was awakened to the sound of someone pounding on the door. Trina was gone. Instantly I knew that something was not right. I stared into the darkness and called her name. The knock continued. Groggily, I got out of bed, hit my big toe on the chair, “Shit,” and stumbled to the door. “Who is it?” I shouted rubbing my sore toe.

  “Hope,” the voice answered back.

  I opened the door, and the ardent sun electrocuted my blood cracked eyes, blinding me. I was standing in my boxers with a morning erection. Hope looked at me pathetically and stormed past me. She was wearing some kind of African garb of floral colors of picot yellow and brown. It was long with a matching hat. She looked like a Princess. I remembered hearing her voice on the radio, but couldn’t recall a thing she said. In her arms she was carrying books. I closed the door limping toward her. “Life, Boy! Did you see the news?” I had not really paid any attention to anything she had said. My attention was focused on the carpeting on the floor pulled up. I walked over to it, bent down and examined it. My money was gone. Never trust a bitch with a fat ass and a sexy smile. Trina had beat me for my stash.

  *****

  Chapter Six

  “Thug Love versus Old Love”

  – Hope –

  I drove away from that hotel with the residue of Life Thugstin in my skin, and in my flesh. I felt humiliated and ashamed. The car I drove was the evidence of my sins, my betrayal to the man I love, my boyfriend Marcus, and yet, I thought about Life and what happened at that hotel. The way that man made love to me, I had never experienced nothing like that before. He had sexed me to the point of tears. As a young woman, I did not even know that was possible. Ecstasy! I thought about his soft touch, how he spread me apart, placed his lips on my privacy, devouring me. Yes, I knew it was so wrong, but for that moment in time it felt so right. I could understand why women cheat, but I was so wrong, morally wrong, or was I? Hope can I lick you there? Shit! I cursed the diction in my mind, changing lust over reason, infidelity over love. I was so wrong! Life and Marcus were as different as day and night. Marcus just graduated from college with a degree in Structural Engineering. He came from a middle class family. He was high yellow with curly hair, a real “Pretty Boy.” We had been together for over two years and he was the man that I gave my virginity to. I almost never enjoyed making love with him. He just never satisfied me, and oral sex was out of the question. There was so much I wanted to learn. I asked him to experiment and he then accused me of cheating on him because of the things I wanted to do with his body. So I decided long ago that sex was not everything. Now I wondered about all the things that I had been missing. Life taught me a lot but Marcus ruled my mind. As I pulled up in his driveway, I had a lot of explaining to do and I needed to do it before Trina saw him. The trepidation of it wore me down like a ball and chain. I knocked on his front door. His front porch was decorated with all kinds of exotic plants. The summer breeze felt good on my face. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I pawed at my hair. The door opened. Marcus Green was dressed in causal black slacks and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt. He took one look at me and smiled, taking me into his arms.

  “Girl, I missed you,” he said dearly, planting wet kisses on my face and neck. He pulled me inside. He was unusually vibrant and beamed. “I’ve found a job!” Animated, he carried me through his small apartment with the excitement of a man that had just accomplished one of his biggest dreams and he wanted to celebrate. In my mind I wished that I didn’t come; the generic smile on my face was as plastic as a storefront mannequin. He sensed my discomfort. “Baby are you OK?” he asked, while taking my hand and cocking his head sideways, affection written all over his face.

  “I’m just tired from the long drive,” I said and kissed him on the cheek, feeling so guilt-ridden that I wanted to run out of the door.

  Marcus watched me intently. “Let me get you something to drink. Want a beer to celebrate?” he asked as his eyes roamed my body in a way that I knew so well. I nodded my head yes and watched as he danced away with a look in his eyes. I had the uncanny feeling that something was not quite right.

  I sat on the couch and the television was on the news. I watched absent-mindedly as a litany of voices chanted in my head. All of them chaos of my guilt. Suddenly on the screen, three white faces jumped out at me. Startled, I felt my heart racing as I sat on the edge of my seat. The newscaster began to announce that three men had been shot. I covered my mouth with a trembling hand. My question was finally about to be answered.

  “Last night, three men were robbed at gun point and shot in the buttocks. The victims stated that they were robbed by five heavily armed Black men driving an older model Ford Mustang.”

  Marcus returned with drinks in his hand. My eyes were glued to the television set like I was in some kind of trance. He sat down, passed me my drink and placed his arm around me just as a commercial came on. I was trying to decipher what I had just heard, and yes, it was tragedy that those men had been shot in the ass, but thank God they were not dead. And then it dawned on me what the announcer said, “… five heavily armed men … shot in the buttocks.” I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud, maybe from the relief that the thug, Life, had not killed those men.

  Marcus was talking a mile a minute, and I never heard a word he said until he turned to me and looked at me strangely, and asked what was I laughing at. I turned and kissed him fully. In return, he responded in a way that caught me off guard. He acted as if he were starving for my body. His dexterous hands found their way under my blouse, unhooking my bra with the snap of a finger, releasing my breasts. My nipples were still sore from the night before. I didn’t know why. I had no intentions of having sex with him, but my conscience needed to relieve the guilt of my debauchery. His mouth found my nipples and he gently nibbled on them in a way that almost drove me crazy. His body language was urgent, a man’s desire that he needed me, it felt almost primitive. And in the cramped chamber of my mind, where I had wronged him, I needed him, too. Needed him to forgive me. In my heart I loved him. I would not deny him, not today, not ever, I needed his forgiveness. My love was all I had to offer. I pulled away from him. He opened his mouth to complain but I silenced him by putting my finger over his pouting lips, and stood, giving him a look with the promise of the world I was offering as I disrobed down to my bare essence. With no inhibitions, no restraints, I gave him my sinful body to do with what he pleased. He laid me on the couch gently, entered me slowly. I closed my eyes and Life’s handsome face appeared. I spread my legs wider, whispering epithets into his ear. I wanted him to punish me, purge me from my sins. But all Marcus could do was poke me, and eight minutes later we were finished. He lay on top of me spent, panting like he had just got finished running a race. We didn’t use a condom. My mind was so full of guilt that I forgot, but Marcus on the other hand, was a stickler for birth control.

  “Hope, I love you.” Marcus slobbed on my face with wet kisses, his weight was starting to hurt, and to be truthful, I was very disappointed in his lovemaking skills again. It numbed my guilty conscience considerably. Marcus then asked, in what sounded like practiced
tones, “Hope, will you marry me?”

  His timing was horrible! I did not answer, but in the back of my mind, I wondered if he intentionally didn’t use a condom. He was still lying on top of me, his weight still uncomfortable. Just as I was about to complain, avoiding his question, in my peripheral vision I caught a glimpse of something on the television set. It was a police chase shown from a helicopter, Oh my God! It was Life Thugstin in a car chase running from the police. The camera showed him driving down one-way streets, over guard rails up until the point he exited the car at the mall. Now the reporter was showing footage, a couple exiting the mall. I could vaguely see myself walking with Life. Our figures showed up as only darkened shadows. The reporter was asking for any help that might lead to any arrest of the suspect. I thought my heart was going to explode in my chest. Suddenly, Marcus’s weight on top of me was too much to bear. He was still whispering lilting affections into my ear. “Hope be my wife.” I could feel his little erection on my thigh prodding now with anew vigor, but all I could envision were prison bars. It felt like he was suffocating me. You’ll be back in a hurry, trust me! Life’s words resonated in my brain like a bomb being detonated. I shoved Marcus off of me and he nearly fell on the floor. “Hope! What’s wrong with you girl?” he screeched. I sat up, flustered, running my fingers through my hair. Now I was wondering if Life left something in that car, something to make me come back to him. Oh, God! And the police were looking for me, too. I untangled my body from Marcus’ and began to quickly dress. Marcus was pleading for all the wrong reasons. “Hope, I love you. You know that I do. Talk to me.”

  My mind was racing a mile a minute. I touched his arm. “I love you too, but we’re rushing things. I still have four years of law school and you still need to get situated,” I said, gesturing with my hands emphasizing on his small apartment.

  Crestfallen, Marcus casted his eyes to the floor. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, men are like little boys when it came to rejection. Even though I loved him, I was not trying to marry him, not now. Plus there was something else about him that I just could not put my finger on. “You did agree to move in with me after you graduated from college, and if I’m good enough to shack with I’m good enough to marry,” he spit defensively. Sometimes when Marcus was ill tempered he acted peevish and now he was starting to piss me off as he stood with his bird chest stuck out, eyebrows knotted together in contempt.

  “First of all, I never agreed to move in with you. I said that I would think about it and that was only because I felt that it would be good for us financially.”

  “Now I have a job, a good one. We can get married, have some babies –”

  “Marcus!” I screamed his name so loud I thought the vein in my neck was going to burst. “There will be no babies! I can assure you of that!” I slid that in to let him know that I was on to his little move that he made by not using a condom. “And no marriage.” Now it seemed like my tongue had a mind of its own and the more I talked, the smaller Marcus got. “I am not going to be dependent on no man. What part of this don’t you understand? I fully intend to be a self-sufficient, independent Black woman doing her own thang. And until I am ready to have some babies, there will be none!” I rolled my eyes at him. Marcus looked at me as if I had just doused him with cold water.

  “Fine! If that’s the way you want it, Miss Independent Black Woman.” And then he did something that struck a serious nerve.

  He stood and pointed his finger in my face. “You’re 21 years old. You need to first understand, this is a man’s world.” He said it like he was taunting me, and the reality of it sent chills down my spine. I knew that it held some truth, but I was not going to back down. “Girl, I’m trying to take care of you.”

  “Shit.” I hissed standing akimbo wearing the wrath of my anger, “That’s just what I don’t want you to do, take care of me.” I shot back at him. “Yeah, you would wanna keep me barefoot and pregnant, and after I have all your babies, trade me for a younger version, I think not!” I pointed my finger in his face shaking my neck. We were standing too close for comfort now.

  “Do what the fuck you want to do!” he yelled, grabbing me by my shoulders. “I am not putting my life on hold for your women’s liberation bullshit dream.”

  I pulled away from him. This was our first real fight.

  “Don’t you ever put your hands on me!” I lamented with my little fists balled up ready to tag his ass. He opened his mouth about to speak and thought better of it and stormed out of the room. I continued to get dressed. I noticed a few of my things around his apartment and wondered if I should take them. I knew in doing so what the implications would mean. I don’t care what anyone says, life is the hardest for a Black woman. Not only was I discriminated against for being a woman, but for also being a Black woman. And for some strange reason, brothas found me intimidating when they learned my aspirations.

  I headed for the door. My anger was starting to quell. Maybe I did go too far. I was trying to be a woman dealing with a man in a relationship.

  “Call me. I’ll be on the air tonight,” I said swallowing my pride. “We need to talk.”

  Marcus appeared from the shadows of the doorway down the hall. I could not read his continuance, didn’t want to either. I closed the door to our lives and meandered to my car. I glanced up at Marcus’ window to see him standing there watching me. Good for his ass, I thought. Make a brotha sweat, let him see me in my new ride. Let him know I wasn’t doing all that bad. For the first time in my life I had no regrets about accepting the car from thug, Life.

  I put on my dark shades, turned up the volume to my booming car system. My girl Mary J. Blige was crooning, “Not Gon’ Cry.” I drove out of the parking lot bouncing to the rhythm. That was my song, haay! Now it held special meaning. There’s something about a break up that can either zap your strength, or be very empowering, if you’re determined to be an independent Black woman like myself. I drove all the way to the campus with a new-found resolve for myself.

  It was like being back home after being gone for so long. FAMU campus is like one big happy family. I was suddenly filled with a feeling of euphoria as I watched students perambulate the campus grounds. I was scheduled to graduate that year.

  I pulled into the student parking lot, waved at a few of my friends and chatted with some. As I was unpacking my things from the car, I thought about Life’s words, you’ll be back. I searched the car for something he might have left. I could find nothing. I sighed in relief, and then something told me to look under the front seat. I stuck my hand under the seat and felt that big-ass gun that he called Jesus. I slumped in my seat. That’s when I noticed the trashcan. I thought about dumping the money and gun into it, but ain’t no sister I know gonna throw away money. Especially me, as bad as I was doing, trying to make it through college. If they would have had a student welfare line, I would have been the first to sign up. I decided right then and there, I was going to give him back his money and big-ass gun, as well as a piece of my mind. In doing so, I realized I was falling right into his trap, and I kind of wanted to. Life Thugstin was an intriguing character. That much I had to admit.

  I needed to get some rest for the show that night. Me and my girl, Nandi, hosted a show together called, “The Panther Power Hours.” She was from California and graduated from FAMU a few years before. Now she was going to Florida State University to earn her Doctorate Degree. For years the show had been a big underground hit. We played nothing but conscious Rap and old R&B back when the music was good. Nandi would mix in sound bytes of Malcolm X and Farrakhan. She was also real heavy into poetry. Often, she and other poets would perform–that’s what gave the show its flavor. On a few occasions, a famous rapper would come by.

  As I carried all of my meager luggage to my room, I spoke to all my friends. I checked out all the new hairdos and designer clothes that I could not afford. FAMU could be like a Black fashion show teaming with Black folks of all social status.

  Once inside the ro
om I shared with my homegirl, Shanana, I took a long hot shower. Afterward, I slept faithfully until my alarm clock went off at 9:00 p.m. I called Nandi from the pay-phone down the hall. As usual, she was excited and upbeat to hear from me. Talking was her natural forte. Her tongue was a double-edged sword. Nandi Shakur was the first conscious person that enlightened me to the plight of Black life in a way that opened up something deep within me. Black people were dying from genocidal acts at a rate so high that, if it had been any other race of people, there would be a blood bath. Between the AIDS epidemic affecting the world, especially in Africa, and the rate that the government was illegally imprisoning our Black men under the disguise of a war against drugs, we were on our way to becoming nonexistent. We had more Black men in prison than colleges and universities. She asked me to think, if America had more white men in prison than colleges, what would they do? I knew the answer to that.

  When I first met Nandi she was in my Political Science class. She always stood out, not just that she was beautiful, but the way she dressed and her long locks of hair. On this particular day, she was arguing vehemently with a white professor, a man that I held very high respect for. The subject was, “Should Black people be given reparations for slavery?” Most of the students in the class felt that Black people should not receive it. I felt that they were just agreeing with the professor’s logic in that color did not matter, and that white America suffered due to slavery, too. Nandi was livid! She argued to the point of tears. Said she owed it to her ancestors to hold white people accountable for the atrocities of over one hundred million people killed or enslaved. I just sat behind my desk and watched the heated exchange of words. The class tried to ridicule her. I was sort of against her too because as far back as I could remember, I had always been taught that it does not matter what color you are, and like the professor was saying, reparations would establish a new color code. Nandi was on her feet, “Why ain’t there any Black men in this class?” I looked around, and to my surprise, there weren’t. Normally there were three brothers in the class, but I had not seen them in a while. “You teaching it shouldn’t matter what color you are, but it does, and racism still exists as an institution exploited by whites!” Nandi’s words were filled with hurtful overtones that compelled me to look at it from her perspective.