All That Drama

by McKinney, Tina Brooks

  “He came over yesterday,” Sherry said.

  “Did he mention me?” I asked, barely able to contain myself.

  “Yeah. He’s hurting, too,” she said. I was treading on dangerous ground. Sherry, even though I considered her my friend, was the biggest gossip in Baltimore. If I wasn’t so desperate, I would have never come to her for answers. I knew she would spread my business, out of love, all over town but I was beyond caring.

  “Hurting, why is that? He’s the one that dropped off the fucking planet.”

  “How much do you know about David, other than his dick size?” she smugly asked.

  “We grew up together, for Christ’s sake!”

  “You tromped on his toes and you didn’t even know it.”

  “How?”

  “You did not hear this from me, okay? Do you know where he works?” she asked.

  “Yeah, at Sinai Hospital.”

  “Doing what?” I knew it was in the cafeteria but I didn’t know what he did for them.

  “Try fry jock,” she stated. Flickers of conversation from my rampage started to come back to me. I had no idea that I had hurt his feelings.

  “He was a master baker. Making $50,000+ a year. He quit the job ’cause the white man disrespected him. His girlfriend and the mother of one of his children left him. He is very bitter about that,” she finished.

  I heard everything she said but one thing stood out more the most. “One of his children?” I asked.

  “That boy got four other children but he don’t claim them like he does Jamal. And that’s a spoiled-ass little boy if I do say so myself. David thinks the sun rises and sets in that child’s eyes, but he is caught in between that bitch baby momma drama and the love of his son. Hell, that baby doesn’t look nothing like him, and that bitch that had the child is working the fuck out of him! Every few weeks, she decides not to let David see him and that is tearing him up.”

  To say that I was shaken to the core was an understatement. He admitted to me that he was a father, but a father of five? That was a little too much. Then, Sherry said he only recognized one; what the hell did that mean? I had no problem believing that he fathered five children given his aversion to condoms but I could not understand his denying paternity. If he slept with the women, there would be no doubt in my mind that he left a baby. The only reason I wasn’t jumping off a fucking bridge was because I had my tubes tied, burnt and buried in the backyard.

  “Where does he live?” I asked, afraid of the answer but needing to hear it anyway.

  “He is staying at his mother’s house but you know she just died. His brothers don’t want to have too much to do with him, but the baby’s momma put him out so he’s kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

  Suddenly a light flashed in my head. The same things that I had said about Keith applied to David. The only difference was that I fell in love with David. “Damn, Sherry, I can see why he is avoiding me. But I fell in love with him,” I said. “I can’t help the similarities between the two but I also can’t control my heart.”

  Inwardly I cringed. Getting with David was like signing up for another no-account man. What was it about me? Did I have a sign on my fucking forehead that said “now hiring no-account losers?”

  Sherry understood my dilemma but she was as powerless to change it as I was.

  Chapter 13

  It had been three months since I had seen or heard from David. Although it still hurt, I figured that all things happened for a reason. I was still getting harassing calls from Keith’s family but I was coping with that as well.

  David had left a uniform at my house and I washed and ironed it hoping he would come back for it. My body did not care what he did for a living or how many children he had. All I really cared about was how he made me feel.

  I packed up his things along with a pair of shoes he had also left behind with a handwritten plea that he reconsider what he was doing. I took those items to his mother’s old house and waited to hear from him.

  Every time the phone rang, my heart skipped double time in anticipation. Meanwhile, life went on even though I hardly participated in it.

  “Hello,” I said when I snatched up the phone.

  “We need to talk,” Keith barked at me.

  I was hardly in the mood to deal with his silly ass but had no plausible excuse to dish out at the moment.

  “Hold on,” I said as I went back to the car and carried in the rest of my groceries. It had been a long day and I just wanted to fix something quick for the kids and turn in.

  “I’m back,” I said. I had not seen or heard from Keith since his last call that threw my happy existence into turmoil.

  “I wanna see my kids,” he snapped angrily at me.

  “And your point is,” I fired back.

  “I can’t make it all the way over there. Why can’t you bring them to me?” he asked. True he was living on the other side of Baltimore but it was only twenty minutes by car so I didn’t understand the problem.

  “No, why should I?” I declared. I had stopped allowing him to come visit the kids at my house since he had a tendency to stay all day. Once I hooked up with David, the mere idea of him lurking in the area turned my stomach. So, if he wanted to see his kids, I felt it only fair that he come pick them up and take them elsewhere for the visit. I suggested that he pick them up from Sherry’s house since he was such “good friends” with Howard and he had not bothered to see them since.

  “I don’t have transportation at the moment,” he mumbled. That statement just did not compute with me. Last I knew he was driving the 1979 Toyota Celica that I had purchased and there was nothing wrong with the car. Out of the goodness of my heart, I let him have that car when I packed his shit up in it.

  “What the hell happened to the car I let you have?” I asked, fearing the worst. Thank God, I didn’t carry insurance on the car, I thought.

  “I had an accident. The steering wheel fell off when I was going around a corner. I ran into a tree.”

  “How the hell does the steering wheel just fall off? You know what, that doesn’t even matter to me. I guess God was just paying you back for the parking tickets you got on my car!” I stated. He didn’t have any response.

  After I had put Keith out, I found out that he had over $400 in parking tickets on my car. Although the original ticket was only for $50, interest and late charges added up. When I went to get my new tags, I had to pay for his ticket and the fines.

  “I still want to see my kids!” he exclaimed, ignoring the rest of my comments.

  “I’m not bringing them all the way over there unless they can stay the weekend.”

  “Marie, I don’t have space for overnight visitors. I’m renting one room!”

  “And, is that my fault?” I asked, tired of being sympathetic to his plight. All of his troubles he had brought down on himself. I was tired of trying to fix his shit. “Let me know what you work out,” I said and hung up. Throughout our marriage, I had been bending over backwards to help Keith. Thankfully, I was finally at a point where I really didn’t give a shit what he did to make things right for him. My sole focus was my children and for once, myself.

  The phone rang again and I assumed it was Keith calling back. I snatched it up without bothering to say hello.

  “We need to talk,” David said. My breath caught in my mouth and my chest started to ache.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I don’t appreciate your dropping off my stuff like that,” he angrily spat.

  “Wait, hold up. What was I supposed to do with it,” I responded, getting angry myself.

  “I could have come and got it myself!” he stated. “You slung my shit on the porch like you were putting me out and I don’t appreciate it.”

  “First of all, I didn’t sling anything. I took them to the only address that I knew of. You cut us off at the knees, not me, and you didn’t have the balls to tell me why!” I shouted. I didn’t want to let him know about my conversation wit
h Sherry.

  “You made it quite clear how you feel about no-account niggers!” he said.

  “And you took a conversation I had with you in my moment of pain regarding my stupid ass ex-husband out of context and used it against me. Yes, I’m bitter about that relationship but that was between him and me. I didn’t bring him into our relationship; you did,” I yelled back at the phone.

  “I was just saving myself some trouble,” he fired back. The conversation was not going anything like I had intended. I didn’t want to argue with him; I wanted to wrap my arms and legs around him and lose myself in his warmth. But I was not going to beg. I had already done my share of begging with him. My letter to him was from the heart. I asked for a second chance to make things right even though I didn’t do anything wrong to him.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” he said. He hung up before I could interject anything else. Hot tears streamed down my face as my chest heaved. I thought I was past the hurt with him but I guess I wasn’t. I sank down at the kitchen table and had a good old-fashioned bawl. I forgot about supper until Kevin came into the kitchen to find out what was for dinner.

  I leaped up and began hurriedly putting up the groceries. I didn’t feel like cooking so I called Pizza Hut and ordered a pizza for delivery. Kevin was so excited, he ran from the kitchen to let his sister know we were having weekend comfort food on a weekday.

  Had I known that Kevin and Keira would get so excited by pizza in the middle of the week, I would have forgone the “pleasure/pain” of cooking every day and opted for a more regimented diet of pizza. The phone rang as I was dishing out slices. It was Keith. All the warm and fuzzy feelings I had disappeared.

  Keith begrudgingly agreed to keep the children for the weekend. I told him that I would drop them off on my way home from work. After getting directions from him, I gave thought to what I was going to do with a free weekend.

  Since it was Halloween, I went to a party shop to choose an outfit. I wished that my girlfriend Angie was home to party with me but I was determined to make the most of it. I had been in a rut over David and could think of no better way to forget a man than to replace him with another.

  Before Angie moved to North Carolina, we always dressed up on Halloween and hit the clubs. One year we dressed up and she was wearing this beautiful cat suit with a long tail and furry sleeves, and her face was made up complete with moveable whiskers. I went as a she-devil, wearing a red body suit with plastic horns, a pitched fork and long red tail.

  It was Angie’s turn to drive and we were riding down the highway. She was smoking a joint and I had just said to her, “Gurl, if you drop that shit, you will go up in flames.” Damn if she didn’t drop the joint right between her legs! She jerked the steering wheel to the left and I tried to grab it back to the center of our lane. We were weaving back and forth from lane to lane until she could get it.

  I didn’t want to reach between her legs to grab it. She was dancing around so much I might have burned my damn self. Plus, I was laughing too hard. She didn’t want to get a burn mark in her rented costume. She preferred to wreck the car and it was my car. Luckily, she found the joint before she took out a car or two. Those were the days, I thought.

  I didn’t find anything that I liked in the costume shops. My boss, Donna, had a most excellent suggestion. She suggested that I dress up as Tina Turner since I had the legs. Persuaded, I shopped for the shortest dress I could find that wasn’t a tee shirt and a wig styled in the same fashion as Tina Turner. I found the dress in the last shop I went into and I was ready. I had fake nails and eyelashes and a pair of four-inch fuck-me heels. The dress was gold lame cut low in the front exposing my boobies, and it clung to my body like body paint.

  Since I was going solo, I didn’t want to go too far from home. I stopped by the neighborhood club but I was the only one dressed up and I doubted if anyone knew why I was dressed the way I was. I wanted to scream at them that it was Halloween for crying out loud. “Ignorant asses,” I muttered to myself as I walked around the club. Frustrated, I was headed out the door when I met two guys coming into the club.

  “Oh please, say it ain’t so. Tell me you aren’t leaving,” the bold one said.

  “It’s dead in there,” I replied. He turned to his friend, pointing at him for emphasis, and said, “Could we try to entertain you for a while? Maybe for a drink?” His friend shook his head in agreement and not having anything better to do, I agreed.

  “My name is Malcolm and this is Dennis,” said the bolder of the two as we grabbed the first available table.

  “I didn’t catch your name?” Malcolm said. Surprisingly, I detected a bit of attitude and raised my perfectly arched brows. He smiled so I dismissed the notion. After all, he was the one who had asked me to come back inside, not the other way around.

  “It’s Marie,” I said. Malcolm began looking around the club as if already bored with my company.

  “Tina Marie Turner?” Dennis said, smiling.

  “You noticed,” I responded with a grin of my own.

  “I’d have to be blind and stupid not to,” he said with a chuckle. “And I must say, you are wearing it well, Ms. Turner. At least I hope you are a Ms.,” he said, looking at my hands for a ring. Malcolm bolted from the table as if his ass was on fire. Perplexed, I looked at Dennis for insight.

  “You have to excuse my friend. He gets this way sometimes after a few drinks,” he explained.

  “Did I do something wrong? He did ask me to come back in, didn’t he?” I said, totally confused.

  “It’s not you, trust me. What are you drinking?” he asked.

  “Sex On The Beach,” I boldly answered. His head jerked in surprise as he got up to go to the bar.

  “Don’t you go and disappear on me,” he said before he turned away. He had a nice round ass and I could not help but admire it. Of the two men, Dennis was definitely better-looking. He was about 6′2”, cocoa brown with nice broad shoulders. He also had these big suckable lips and intense dark brown eyes. Although I had no intentions of walking on the kinky side with him that night, he still was a nice piece of eye candy.

  He came back shortly with my drink, a glass of wine for himself and a beer. I raised my eyebrows at the third drink since I assumed Malcolm had left for greener pastures.

  “He will be back,” Dennis acknowledged when he saw the look on my face. I shrugged my shoulders and took a sip of my drink. I purposely let some of it slide along my lips and used my tongue to lick it up. I was flirting with this guy and he loved it. He knocked over his drink to prove it. I could not hold back the laughter.

  “I’m sorry; it’s the costume. I’m normally not this kind of woman,” I said, holding back the snickers.

  “Hey, I ain’t mad,” he said, mopping up the table and his pants at the same time. “People are going to think I came in my pants.”

  “You wasted your drink. Let me get you another.” I got up from the table allowing him to get a good look at my phat behind. I didn’t look back as I walked to the bar. I ordered him a glass of white Zinfandel and headed back to the table. He had removed the empty glass from the table and thanked me for the drink. I looked around the club; nobody was dancing and I really wanted to dance. I glanced at my watch trying to figure out just how much time I had left. I had spent a lot of money for my outfit and I wanted to be seen. Although I could wear the dress again, the wig was a one-night deal.

  “You were right. It is dead in here,” he said. “How about us going downtown and checking out a few of the clubs on the strip?”

  “I would like to but I really don’t want to be drinking and driving that far. I don’t live far from here; that’s why I chose this place,” I told him.

  “I’ll drive. You can park your car and ride with me. I promise not to do anything to you that you don’t want done,” he said.

  “Is that supposed to be reassuring?” I asked.

  “Yeah. You are looking so fine and there is no one here to appreciate it. I promise you
, scout’s honor. If you agree to ride with me, I will bring you back in one piece. I further promise to step to the side if you find someone that you want to spend time with and still take you back to your car.” He raised his fingers to his head and placed his right hand over his heart. I didn’t know whether that was the scouts’ pledge or not but he sounded so sincere that I agreed.

  “What about your friend?” I asked.

  “He’ll be all right. I’ll tell him where we are going. If he wants to go then he can come; if not, oh well. We didn’t ride together or nothing like that,” he said as he got up to search for his friend. He grabbed the beer as a peace offering I imagined.

  My mother would knock the hell out of me if she saw me right now, I thought. It was so out of character for me and I blamed it on the season. Halloween always brought out the devil in me! I shook my head to get rid of the unpleasant thoughts that followed. Dennis came back before I could completely talk myself out of going. I really wanted to go out and dance and this place just was not happening.

  He followed me out to my car and said he would follow me to my house. I drove there and parked right in front and got into his car. He had a sporty Toyota of some sort but since I was not all that up on cars, the make and model escaped me. He shook his head as I climbed in.

  “What?” I said, prepared to get back out again.

  “Nothing. I just can’t believe that you were right around the corner and I didn’t know it.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I’ll show you.” He drove around the corner to the next block. He lived on the very next street with the same house address as mine. “Fate,” he said while shaking his head. I did not know what to make of the information. He lived on the same street as David on different blocks. I doubted they were friends ’cause Dennis was at least five years his senior.

  During the drive, Dennis told me that he was studying to be a psychoanalyst. He was most interested in phobias. He worked as an intake intern at Rosewood Mental Hospital and would complete school in the fall. I was impressed but didn’t quite believe his story. I was from the old “show me” school plus, I was not interested in him ’cause of his “profession.” I liked him ’cause he looked nice and knew how to treat a lady. He opened all the doors and grabbed my chair when I was sitting down. Those were the types of things that got my attention on the upsweep.