by Dutch
She couldn’t hold back the tears because she was hopelessly in love with Guy and she knew, whether she could hang or not, she wasn’t going anywhere. Guy knew it, too. He pulled her to him and allowed her to cry on his shoulder.
She allowed him to embrace her then pushed him, “Get off of me, nigguh! You know what? Fuck you!! I don’t need you! Me and my baby’ll be fine without yo’ mannish ass!” Gloria got up and stormed out.
Guy didn’t even make an attempt to stop her. He knew she’d be back and he was right… again and again through-out their stormy twenty plus year relationship. But at that time in Guy’s life, everything was sweet… and was about to get sweeter than he ever imagined.
“Boy, when you comin’ home again? Been damn near a year since yo’ mama saw you last. We ain’t gettin’ no younger, you know?” Willie barked into the phone. Guy could tell his father was chomping on his trademark cigar.
“Yes, sir, I know. Matter of fact, I was plannin’ on comin’ down next week,” Guy told him.
“Hmm-mmm. Then I’ll see you next week.”
Click!
The conversations with his father were always short and sweet. Truth be told he was missing his home. Even though he had gotten used to the hustle and bustle of the New York grind, as the old saying goes, there’s no place like home.
Guy and Gloria had been broke up again, this time for three days before Guy went over to her mother’s house in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. Gloria’s mother answered the door like a black woman of authority with an attitude.
“Hello, Mrs. Bell, is Gloria here?” he asked sheepishly.
“Hmm-mmm,” her mother answered with her mouth twisted up with disdain.
“Can I see her?”
“Hmm-mmm,” she grunted again, but didn’t move out the door.
He wanted to say, today??! But he didn’t want to disrespect her, so instead he added, “Please.”
“Hmm-mmm,” she repeated then reluctantly stepped aside so Guy could pass. She had never liked Guy because she had seen his kind before. “He too slick for his own good,” she had told Gloria before. She wasn’t fooled by the country charm. She knew underneath beat the heart of a killer, conniver and womanizer. He wouldn’t do anything but break her daughter’s heart.
Guy walked in then followed the sound of Gloria’s voice into the kitchen. He leaned against the doorway watching Gloria sitting at the table, talking to her sister Pam. Guy’s heart wept every time he saw Gloria. She radiated a beauty few women could without trying. He wanted her to be his wife, he just knew deep down he could never be her husband.
“What?” Gloria snapped, when she saw him standing in the door. She succeeded in sounding angry, but she really wanted to jump up and tongue him down. He looked so good in his silk suit; Stetson cocked ace deuce and that print that made women swoon and seemed to go on for days. She was like a moth drawn to the flame.
Guy smiled that cocky smirk. “How you doing, baby? I missed you.”
Gloria loved when Guy looked at her like that. It made her feel like a little girl again.
“Hey, Guy,” Pam spoke.
“Hey,” he replied without emotion or even looking in her direction. He had fucked Pam several times, but his focus was on Gloria.
Gloria sucked her teeth. “What you want?”
“You.”
“I told you its over,” she said, like she had said many times before.
Guy came over and sat in the chair catty-corner from her. “I just stopped by to tell you I’m going home.”
Gloria’s heart dropped to her stomach and all she could think of was Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia”.
“I see.”
Guy inwardly smiled. “Yeah, I just thought it was time I went to see the folks, they ain’t gettin’ no younger and it’s been awhile. So I thought it was time for my mama to meet my wife.”
Gloria looked up at Guy. “Wife??” she echoed, her heart-beat quickening.
Guy went in his inside pocket and came out with a small jewelry box. Gloria’s breath shortened and all of Guy’s past trespasses melted away the closer he got to one knee.
He grunted a little at the uncomfortable position of being on one knee and looked into her eyes. “Baby, I know I’ve made mistakes in the past, so I would understand if my plea fell on deaf ears. If so, then instead of being on one knee, I’ll get down on both and beg you, Ms. Gloria Bell to be my wife,” Guy proposed, extending the open jewelry box and exposing the five-carat diamond ring.
Gloria covered her mouth with both hands. She was speechless, but the sparkle in her clouded eyes spoke volumes. Trembling, she nodded yes.
“Is that yes? Tell me yes,” Guy urged.
“Yes, Guy Simmons, I’ll marry you! I love you,” she exclaimed breathlessly.
Gloria stood up, pulling Guy up with her and hugged him as tight as her six-month pregnant belly would allow. Guy caught Pam’s sour expression and winked at her. Gloria’s mother saw the whole scene from the door and shook her head. She knew some women were foolish enough to think that a ring could change a man, and she hated to see that her daughter was one of those women.
“The hard-headed have to feel it to believe,” she mum-bled to herself.
Gloria saw the disapproval in her mother’s eyes as she turned and walked out and wished it weren’t so, but Gloria was twenty-one years old and she had it all figured out, or so she thought. She knew what Guy was about. She just felt like his marrying her confirmed that he did truly love her. No other woman could claim his last name. Her mind was still on Gladys Knight…
I’d rather live in his world, than live without
him in mine…
Gloria had never been to the South before. She’d barely been out of New York, except when she went to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. They made the trip in Guy’s brand new 1980 pearl white Cadillac Eldorado. Guy had bought it off the showroom floor with cash. He vowed to drive nothing but Cadillacs, a promise he never broke to himself even when he could afford better.
The experience was entirely new to a city girl like Gloria. All the wide open spaces and rows and rows of tobacco, corn and wheat made her think of the old days. “Is them slaves?” she half joked, seeing several black men in the field picking tobacco.
Guy chuckled. “Naw, girl, them yo’ cousins! Don’t act like yo’ Geechie ass people ain’t come barefoot from Charleston!”
Gloria laughed because her mother and father were from South Carolina. “Ain’t they scared they gonna run off or somebody might steal ‘em?” she questioned, seeing the cows and horses in fields they passed.
“Naw.”
“Why?”
“They just don’t, is all.”
“Why?”
“Gloria… turn up the radio.” Guy smiled.
Gloria noticed Guy was more laid back. He wasn’t as gangsta as he was in New York. He even drove with his gators kicked off. He sang the words of the songs on the radio, so she could see he was happy to be home.
“Guy?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t live on no farm, do you?”
Guy just laughed.
They reached Goldsboro and things looked a little more familiar to Gloria. It was clearly a small town, but once they reached Webbtown, she knew she was in the ghetto. Poverty always gave off a certain stench. Guy drove to his parent’s home. The home he grew up in.
“This is it,” he announced, pulling into the driveway and parking behind Willie’s blue Cadillac Brougham.
Gloria looked the house over. It was a nice brick ranch style home. There was only one floor, but the house was long and wide. There was a carport and a pretty green lawn that ran right up to the street, because not many streets had sidewalks besides the main thoroughfares.
Willie came out the front door to see who had pulled up. He stood there in his pants and his suspenders over his t-shirt. “Mabel! Yo’ son heah!” he yelled back over his shoulder through the screen.
&
nbsp; Guy helped Gloria out the car just as his mother came out the door.
“Guy!” she exclaimed, coming off the porch to meet him. Guy hugged her tightly then stepped back to look at her. She was a little more grey than she was a year ago, just like his daddy’s hairline had receded and his belly exceeded what he had seen a year ago. The thought of his parents one day dying sent a chill through him and he vowed to come home more.
“Hey, Mama! How’s my favorite girl?” Guy asked.
“Don’t look like I’m your favorite girl anymore,” Mabel chuckled, looking at Gloria’s stomach. “Who is this pretty young thing?”
“Your future daughter-in-law,” Guy replied.
Gloria smiled ear to ear. “Hello Mrs. Simmons, I’m Gloria. Gloria Bell.”
“She sho’ is pretty, Guy,” Mabel complemented.
“Thank you,” Gloria blushed.
“Come on in and take a load off,” Mabel offered, taking Gloria’s arm. They walked up on the porch.
“And this is my father, Willie Simmons.”
“Hello, Mr. Simmons, it’s good to meet you. Guy told me a lot about you,” Gloria said.
“Then why would you marry this young-en, when his daddy is the real thing.” Willie winked as he kissed Gloria’s hand.
Gloria giggled like a schoolgirl. “I see where you get it from,” she said to Guy. Gloria and Mabel went in the house.
“Eldorado, huh? Musta set you back a pretty penny,” Willie signified.
“Thirteen five,” Guy informed him.
“Must be doin’ pretty well,” Willie surmised.
“I’m doin’ okay,” Guy answered.
Willie looked at his son and smiled. He was shaping up to be a true Simmons. “Glad to have you home, son.”
“Glad to be home.”
“Go on in there and visit with yo’ mama. Later on we gonna talk.”
Guy and Gloria sat with his parents for awhile and had dinner. They talked about their future plans and told Gloria embarrassing stories about Guy as a child. Gloria enjoyed it thoroughly, but when the sun went down, Guy told her to get dressed. He was going to show her the real Goldsboro. He was anxious to see a few old friends because he wanted to bring a few of his thoroughest homeboys back to New York with him. He wanted men around him he knew he could trust.
They first made their way over to James Street. James Street back in the day was to Goldsboro what 42nd Street was to New York. Any and everything went down on “the block”. Willie owned a pool room smack dab in the middle of the block with a club in the back. There were several pool rooms along the two block radius where most of the activity took place, but Willie’s was the place to be.
Guy pulled up in that sparkling white Eldorado and double parked right outside the pool room. He blocked traffic in doing so, but he could do that, he was a Simmons.
“Baby,” Gloria chimed as Guy helped her from the car, “you can’t park here. You blockin’ half the street.”
Guy smiled. “Shit, I’m home. This my street.”
The prodigal son had returned and returned with a vengeance. Guy stepped out wearing a tailor made gangsta black silk suit, red silk shirt and hankie with a black silk tie. His Ostrich boots were black with red topside. His black Stetson sported a red band and feather. His diamond ring and watch sparkled like the stars in the sky. He told Gloria to make him look good and she didn’t disappoint. Even six months pregnant, she was killing the off the shoulder chiffon dress that V’d in the front and revealed her shapely legs. Over her shoulder was a mink shawl and her heels were gold heeled and open toed.
As they made their way into the pool room, the crowd parted like the Red Sea, whispering and pointing in their wake.
“Look who’s here!”
“Guy’s home!”
“My nigguh!”
Was all Guy heard entering the pool hall. Old friends and old girlfriends flirted, but Guy kept Gloria close and took the whole night in stride. Gloria was impressed with the night life in the small town. It wasn’t New York by a long shot but it was obvious that the game was alive and well in the South. Guy’s Caddy wasn’t the only gangsta white walls spinning the block. True players slid up in Willie’s to show that they too were on top of their game.
But the biggest impression made on Gloria was the way the other players respected and looked at Guy like he was the reigning prince. She saw that the scraggly dressed country boy that wandered into her brother’s bar didn’t get his game from New York; he had been raised with it.
“Ay, New York! Get yo’ punk ass outta here fo’ I drag you out!” a voice growled from the front door.
Guy knew he was talking to him because of his New York license plate. Gloria tensed but the smile that spread across Guy’s face relaxed her as Guy spun around.
“You black ass nigguh!” Guy exclaimed, with gangsta glee.
“You jive motherfucka!” the man bellowed back, before the two closed the distance between each other and embraced like long lost brothers.
“Hawk Bill Braswell! You still the uuugliest nigguh I know!” Guy cracked at the shorter man. Hawk Bill was built like Joe Frazier with a pug nose.
“And, nigguh you still the lamest! Lookin’ like Petey Wheatstraw the Devil’s son in law!” Hawk Bill cracked back.
Guy noticed that Hawk Bill was dressed pretty well. He could see he wasn’t heavy, but he damn sure wasn’t starving.
“This is Gloria, my fiancée. Gloria, you are now looking at the only gorilla in the world that can speak. Hawk Bill.”
Gloria laughed. “Hello, umm, should I call you Hawk or Bill?”
Hawk tipped his hat with a flourish. “Call me whatever you like pretty lady, just don’t forget to call me when you drop this lame,” Hawk chuckled.
Guy, Gloria and Hawk Bill kicked it at Willie’s, danced at the Carousel then gambled at Ms. Lillian’s before they made it back to Hawk Bill’s liquor house located across town.
The house was packed, the liquor poured and the music played. It was all good until three well dressed men came in, each with a bad red bone apiece on their arm. The first man and Guy locked eyes and the man smirked and winked. Guy didn’t return his acknowledgement.
“What’s up, Guy? Long time no see. That yo’ Cadillac out there wit’ the New York tags?”
“What about it? It goddamn sure ain’t yours!” Guy spat back smoothly, but the venom was evident in his tone.
The man chuckled. “Same ol’ Guy. Same slick ass mouth I see. Betta be careful, nigguh. See it don’t get you in a fucked up situation.” Guy smiled and downed his drink.
Gloria eased closer to him, feeling the tension building. “Guy, I’m ready to go.” Guy looked at Gloria and she saw that same gangsta stare that he kept in New York.
“Be easy, baby. Brah is the neighborhood clown. He just came to dance for us,” Guy quipped, making some of the patrons chuckle, even though most of them knew the history with the two men.
Brah Hardy was the oldest of the six Hardy boys. They made their money off weed. Ma Hardy raised the boys hard so not many wanted to fuck with the Hardy boys. Brah and Guy despised each other. What started out as a childhood rivalry had grown into a grown man’s beef.
Hawk Bill felt under the counter for the sawed off.
Brah laughed. “Yeah, I love to dance, nigguh. Listen… you hear that? They playin’ our song,” Brah hissed.
Guy didn’t hesitate. Before Gloria could pull him back, Guy was up and on his feet. Hawk Bill cocked the sawed off and followed the crowd outside. He went to make sure the other two Hardy’s ain’t jump in. By the time he got there, both men had their coats off and were going toe-to- toe.
Brah Hardy was a few inches taller than Guy and he had the reach, but Guy’s hand speed was quicker. Guy managed to evade the telegraphed right cross, ducking it and catching Brah with a kidney punch. Brah bent double then Guy finished him with a swift uppercut that knocked Brah flat on his back.
Barely breathing hard, Guy straightened his t
ie and stood over the dazed Brah. “Next time,” Guy paused to put on his jacket, “stay in yo’ goddamn place.” Guy kicked Brah in the ribs then calmly went back inside got Gloria and left while the Hardy boys stared daggers in his back.
“Guy… Guy… Guy!” Willie whispered harshly, shaking Guy awake. Gloria stirred slightly as Guy turned over to look at his father.
“Daddy?” he said, half sleep.
“Boy, get yo’ ass up. How you gonna be a hustler? You sleep the day away,” Willie scolded him quietly.
“What time is it?” Guy asked, sitting up. It felt like he’d only been sleep a few minutes.
“Five o’clock.”
Guy’s eyes popped open. “In the mornin’???” He had just gotten in after three. It was still dark outside.
“Naw, nigguh, in the goddamn evenin’. Of course in the mornin’. Now get dressed, I got somebody you need to meet.”
As they drove along the highway, Guy tried to get some sleep before they reached their destination. Willie reached over and hit him in the chest.
“Boy, wake yo’ ass up.”
“Daddy,” Guy replied impatiently, “I ain’t get in ‘til damn near four. It’s five in the mornin’! Just wake me up when we get there.”
“Then you shoulda had yo’ ass home befo’ twelve. Most nigguhs catch charges after twelve ‘cause they out galavantin’ and they get caught up,” Willie schooled Guy, who was only half listening. “That’s when the stick up artists catch you slippin’! Drinkin’, chasin’ a piece of pussy, shit like that. You got to wake the game up and put it to bed. A man don’t need to be seen to be felt.”
“Yeah, I hear you. Where we goin’ anyway?”
“Winston-Salem.”
They arrived a little after eight in the morning and drove to a small dilapidated house. Parked outside were a mid-sized pick-up truck and a van. Willie parked behind the van then he and Guy got out. Guy stretched his tired limbs then glanced at his watch. As they walked in the opened front door, two guys wearing tool belts walked out.