Never Knew Love Like This Before

by Denise Campbell

  Coleman looked at him and paused. “Good night.” He was in a good mood. He could even forget the beef he had had with Malik for saying that Mellon was no good for him. He loved Mellon and he didn’t care what anyone else said. He could already see himself pumping his way into that pyramid V between Mellon’s legs. The girl’s loving was so good it needed to be bottled and sold. And she had to be born with it. She’d had this same musky sensuality since she was a young girl. The first time Coleman went sniffing around her.

  It was love at first sight for Coleman when he saw Mellon. He was sixteen and she was a gum-popping, sassy girl of thirteen. It was her Creole accent that he’d fallen in love with. Although she was a project girl, and his mother had warned him against her, he didn’t mind. Truth be told, he was a project child himself—that is, before his father died and his mother, accompanied by her insurance money, bought their two-bedroom bungalow outside the projects. In 1997, when he returned home from the army where he’d served a tour of duty in Bosnia, Coleman married Mellon.

  When he turned the corner at the far end of his street, because of the full moon, Coleman noticed but didn’t pay attention to a familiar-looking Escalade parked under his neighbor Mrs. Wall’s cottonwood tree. Still whistling, he cut off the radio when he pulled into his driveway.

  Suddenly an electrical charge coursed through his body. Coleman felt his pulse start to race. Why was the house dark? Generally Mellon left the living room light on, as well as the porch light.

  A twinge of danger ran up his back like a sour note in jazz. Heart trotting, fear propelled him up the stairs, foot sinking into the carpet, leg pushing leg, hand reaching over hand, up the banister. By the time he made it to the top landing, he heard them. The love noises, the bed squeaking. Crack, crack, squeak, squeak. Worse, he smelled them—the love funk.

  As if in a trance, he followed the dim candlelight cast from under the doorway into the hallway. Stealthily, he opened the door; they were going at it like two dogs, oblivious to anything or anyone, but that moment. That image, frozen like some grotesque octopus in a piece of amber, would forever remain emblazoned in his psyche.

  Methodically, Coleman stepped back out the room, reached in his linen closet next to the bedroom door where he kept his Glock and pulled it out. Only the shock of recognition kept him surprisingly calm. He had killed before over in the war. But those were total strangers. These were not strangers. Now he knew where he’d seen that Escalade. It not only belonged to his quartet’s piano player, its owner was his first cousin, Luke. Yes, Luke, in bed with his wife. Luke who had called in sick tonight.

  With a flick of the wrist, Coleman cut on the light. The coupling ended abruptly; Mellon scrambled for the blanket to cover her nakedness. However, Luke was unable to hide the evidence of his transgression. His jones was still erect and slick with Mellon’s oils.

  “Blue, dawg . . .” Luke stammered.

  “Blue, it’s not what it look like. . . .” Mellon began crying.

  “Luke, naw, man,” was all Coleman could utter. His voice sounded far away like a shell-shocked man.

  Dazed, Coleman cocked the gun.

  Chapter 1

  Deni

  Los Angeles, California,

  August 25, 2005,

  Category One Storm

  Hurricane Katrina had just become a Category One hurricane when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrora-diometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on August 25, 2005, at 12:30 P.M., Eastern Daylight Savings Time.

  “Girl, are you pregnant again?”

  Covering the phone’s receiver, Deni ogled the watermelon bulge under her cousin Shana’s caftan, and couldn’t help from blurting out her naked thoughts. As she stood in the hallway, the old-fashioned black phone’s receiver balanced on her neck like a snake handler, she didn’t know if she was more shocked at Shana’s pregnancy, as by her cousin’s nonchalant attitude. The only thing, which reeled her back, was the male voice on the other end of the line.

  “Miss, are you still there?”

  Wiping her brow, Deni code switched back into her professional voice. “Sir, I’m checking on a Shawn George Lockwood, date of birth 10-15-73.”

  “Yes, we have a Shawn George Lockwood.”

  “May I have his inmate number?” She turned and whispered to her little second cousin, Unique. “Cut the TV down, so I can put this number in my Blackberry.”

  The room was filled with the blare of some upcoming hurricane called Katrina and Deni could hardly hear the inmate clerk’s voice on the other end of the phone.

  The eleven-year-old scrambled to lower the dial on the old-fashioned floor model television plopped dead center in the cramped living room.

  Meantime, Deni blew her bangs out of her eyes and fanned her perspiring face. She sure missed her air conditioning from her near-beachfront condo in Santa Monica. She punched the number into her Blackberry.

  Although her mouth voiced words, her mind was on her cousin, Shana, who already had six children, a boisterous brood of “Be Be’s kids,” ranging in ages from eleven to two, one Afro-puff behind another cornrowed head, and outlandish, Afrocentric names, which would plague them the rest of their lives, as far as Deni was concerned.

  “Girl, you crazy.” Shana threw her head back and laughed at Deni’s outburst. Her face was as clear and simple as a raindrop on a palmetto leaf—everything reflected beneath came to the surface.

  What you see is what you get, Deni mused. It doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

  Here Shana was, only thirty-three and having a seventh baby. Hmmph. As if she was the world’s greatest mother. As if she had a silver spoon in her mouth. As if her husband, Lionel, had more than a menial job as a school janitor. Didn’t she know about birth control in this new millennium? Without knowing it, Deni twisted her lips in disgust. Shana was hopelessly lost.

  As soon as Deni hung up the phone, she noticed that Shana’s face had curved into waves of defiance, but she could care less. Her mind was on Shana’s daughter Samari who was ferreting through her purse.

  “Get out my purse!” she screeched at the five-year-old, knowing full well Shana didn’t play that about her kids. Shana didn’t want anyone to reprimand any of her children.

  Deni didn’t care. She just wanted to keep all sticky, stubby fingers off her Prada purse and her Versace suit. With a firm grip, she pried her purse out of the little girl’s fingers, then clutched it to her chest. It wasn’t just her money that she was worried about. It was that damned letter. Her purse contained a letter, the one she didn’t want her cousin to know about. The letter from that man—that stranger, claiming to be her biological father. Right now, the letter still burned a hole into her psyche. Like kryptonite, it had the same power to blow her fragile, hard-won security out the water.

  Shana rushed forth and gathered Samari in her arms. “Leave Cuda Mama alone! She didn’t do nothin’!” She gave Deni a defiant glare. Shana also loved nicknaming her children in even more ridiculous names than their birth names.

  Peeking from under her mother’s embrace, Samari gave her a “See there!” glare.

  Deni changed the subject. “Where’s Mother Ticey?” She looked away, hoping to circumvent the collision she knew was coming almost as inevitably as the New Orleans Katrina hurricane they’d been warning about on the news all week. Why had she come over here anyhow?

  But Deni knew the reason. Whenever she was upset, instead of going to her immaculate condominium in Santa Monica, she came to this wall-to-wall, peopled place to draw solace. In spite of its run-down appearance, this Charoite-vine–covered stucco house, with its worn-around-the-edges look, held so much love, it oozed out of the corners like a full cherry pie. This home also held her maternal grandmother, Mama Ticey (whom Deni had recently begun calling Mother Ticey), who had a way of bringing in light, making the house have a palatial feel. Crimson bougainvilleas clustered around the sagging porch and gave the house a cozy character, even though it stood at the edg
e of the Jordan Down projects.

  Today, Deni had come home seeking peace, but instead, found herself in the midst of what she called “the crazy farm.” She’d also wanted to talk to her grandmother about this alleged father of hers.

  Instead, here she was, already upset by this cursed letter, then next she’d found out her first cousin, Shawn, whom everyone called Slammer, was back in jail, facing a third strike. Then, as if to add a clincher to her day, she discovered that Shana (Slammer’s twin), her silly behind cousin, was pregnant for the seventh time. Aye-yi-yi. How come you couldn’t pick your own family? Her family was completely off the chain.

  The next thing Deni knew, Shana had blocked her path in the hallway, feet planted firmly, arms akimbo, head waving from side to side, as she bleated, “So what’s all this tom ’bout ‘you-pregnant-again?’ Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I recall, I am married—unlike some people who got left at the altar like a whore’s panties.” Shana’s lips curled into a nasty slur. Shana gave the word married about four syllables with her verbal facility.

  “Hey! Don’t go getting ballistic on me!” Deni knew that Shana was intentionally making a stab at her manless, childless, weddingless state of being. This jab was also to remind Deni of her wedding fiasco from last year, at which she’d been jilted at the altar, in spite of six bridesmaids, six groomsmen, and the whole nine yards. Shana’s insult was meant to crush her. It did.

  But years of growing up with her abrasive, outspoken ghetto-ass cousins had taught her the art of “comeback.”

  “Besides,” Deni added, deliberately holding her nose high in the air, “I don’t need a man to validate my worth.”

  Around her roughshod relatives, she knew she had to wear a callous carapace—even if it was a facade, even if she knew she was being as fraudulent as a three-dollar-bill.

  Before the two women’s harsh words could escalate into the war zone of no return, as if out of nowhere Mama Ticey hobbled into the small dining room, smoothing the air with her butter-bread warmth. Several of her great-grandchildren, Ketourian, Ian, Samari aka Cuda Mama, and Miss Muff, arms hanging wreathlike around her sweet-potato-shaped waist in a hug, clustered about her. Her familiar scent of Juicy Fruit gum and sarsaparilla lingered in the air.

  “You two at it again,” Mama Ticey entreated. “Fightin’ est cousins I ever saw. Ever since you were girls, you’ve been fussing. Now kiss and make up.”

  Just as suddenly as a summer shower will stop, the two women ceased arguing. Not only the bearer of peace, Mama Ticey knew how to smooth over dissension. Although the cousins didn’t make up, they broke into welcome for Mama Ticey, each woman taking a bag out of her arms.

  “Miss Emma couldn’t give me any money to help get Slammer out of jail, but she sure gave me some pretty turnips and mustards. Shana, you feel like cleaning them for your old Mama Ticey?” Miss Emma was Mama Ticey’s next door neighbor.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Shana took one of Deni’s bags from her arms, stuck out her tongue at Deni, then turned and dawdled into the adjacent kitchen.

  “Deni, you hear about Shawn?” Mama Ticey asked. Her hands, which never rested, settled on Miss Muff’s head. Absently, she began to replait a braid that had unraveled. Everyone called Shana’s seven-year-old daughter Miss Muff. Anyhow, Deni could hardly remember what the child’s real ghetto-fabulous name was. I Let You Queen. That was it. Shana needed to quit.

  Deni listened for what her grandmother didn’t say. Mama Ticey didn’t mention the fact that Slammer already had two strikes, or felonies, and this would be his third felony—which, by California’s three-strike law, could end up costing him a life sentence.

  “Yes, I did, Mother Ticey. I see he’s at it again. This time the charge is receiving and concealing stolen goods. The bail is fifty-five thousand, which is fifty-five hundred cash. This is ridiculous. I know you better not put this house up with the bondsman. Grandaddy left this house for you. Besides, when is Shawn ever going to learn?”

  “Oh, now, Deni. The boy just made a mistake. Always was high-spirited.” Mama Ticey gave a sigh mixed with part-resignation, part-love, and part-admiration.

  “Mother Ticey, with all due respect, but the boy is thirty-three years old.” Deni heard her usually soprano voice raise an octave and crack.

  “Well, he’s still a boy to me.”

  “Well, he’s not a boy when he goes and breaks the law.”

  “I think I’ll pawn my diamond earrings.”

  Suddenly all the starch left Deni’s speech and she reverted to her childhood name for her grandmother. “No, you won’t, Mama Ticey! I bought those for you, and I’ll take them back before I see you pawn them on Slammer. He’s not worth it!”

  Suddenly Shana hurtled as swiftly as a quarterback out of the kitchen. Her hands, still wet from picking the greens, whirled around her head, windmill fashion, reminding Deni of the movie The Matrix.

  “Hey, wait a minute, Miss Muckety-Muck! Don’t come over here showboating. Thank you so much ’cause you got a little education. Thank you because you drive a Mercedes and don’t live in the ’hood no more that you’re better than us.

  “But you ain’t no better than nobody. You still one of us. I think we saw that at your little wedding last year, which by the way, my friends still laugh about.”

  Deni ignored this remark. “Wait a minute!” She stepped up to Shana, knowing her gangster-acting cousin would put her lights out if it wasn’t for her pronounced pregnancy, yet emboldened by her anger, Deni pointed her finger in her face. “You had a better chance at going to college than I did. I worked my ass off for what I have, and if you didn’t take advantage of your opportunities, that’s your business. I’m sick and tired of this mess. Every time Slammer’s ass goes to jail, I see I’m the first person y’all call on. But this time, he can rot in there for all I care.” Deni crossed her arms in a “There!” symbol.

  “You don’t mean that, Deni,” Mama Ticey interceded. “You’re just upset. You know blood thicker than water.”

  Mama Ticey appeared so distraught that Deni threw her hands up. She definitely didn’t want to run her grandmother’s blood pressure up, so she stalked into the old bedroom she used to sleep in as a child. Deni looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Secondhand furniture and worn-out looking twin quilts, which Mother Ticey made by hand. Everything was neat and orderly. No clothes or paper on the floor. The brown carpet bore broom marks where it had received its daily sweeping. Pictures graced the walls of three generations. Her late Grandpa Amos Richards, her grandmother, Mama Ticey, her late mother, Esther, and a shipload of relatives. This is the way it had always been for her. No father in the picture. She’d never felt his absence either, so why did she need him now.

  Before she could let out a scream or slam a brush down on the dresser bureau, Deni noticed that Shana’s baby, Diamond, was curled up sleeping on the very same quilt she used to curl up in.

  She settled for a virulent hissing through her nose and clenching of her fists until her nails left half-moon marks in her palms. Something was wrong with this whole picture, Deni decided. Here she was, supposedly part of the “Talented Tenth,” which W.E.B. DuBois had regaled in The Souls of Black Folk.

  But if anything, her gifts, her talents, her intellect, only served to alienate her from her family, her roots. “I just can’t relate to Black people,” she said out loud. “Even if this is my family.”

  And men. That was another sad story. Like a person finding bitter meat inside of a much-desired cracked nut, her mind lingered over an incident, which had taken place earlier that afternoon. Just as she was healing from what happened with her former fiancé, professional playa, Black Businessman of the Year, Trent McGee, she’d been flirting with the idea of stepping back out into the dating game.

  Currently, to pass time, she was sleeping with a married accountant named Ronald McClellan, with whom she had no desire to have a long-term relationship, but who, for now, was just a “tune-up, get-through-the-hard
-times” lover. Unfortunately, after each lustful encounter she felt as cheap as a two-dollar crack whore. She knew she had to end this liaison; but at this time, she just didn’t have the strength to do it.

  Earlier that afternoon, when Deni had headed out of the employees parking lot during the lunch break, she’d noticed the carmine red convertible Jaguar that she’d been eyeing surreptitiously for the past month. It belonged to the only other Black county counsel—in fact the only Black male attorney on the panel. Before his arrival, she’d been the only African-American dependency court attorney on the panel in their assigned courtroom.

  Its owner, Hollis Winfield, was a rugged, muscular brother. They’d spoken briefly in the elevator, when he first started work about a month earlier. She wanted to invite Hollis to a casual lunch with her. Deni had started to blow her horn at him. As it turned out, she was grateful she hadn’t. When she caught a glimpse of strawberry-blond hair cascading out of the window of the rider’s side, she recognized the woman as his secretary.

  Why did all the professional brothers feel they needed a white woman on their arm to complete their image of success? Although Deni, as a child dependency court-appointed attorney, could go do battle in a courtroom like any man, she wanted to be able to rest in someone’s arms when she came home at night. She wanted to be able to nestle her head in that little spot between a man’s neck and his shoulders. She wanted to lay her career down—if only for a little while. She thought about Trent, and although her public humiliation still stung after a year, this was better than if she’d wound up married to someone who didn’t love her.

  Glancing down at the sleeping baby, hair curlicued into about thirty circular braids, thumb stuck in her mouth, Deni felt something thawing inside of her. A debacle of denial. In its place, a new emotion, as inchoate as the first unfurling leaves of a rosebud, began to open up inside of her.