All That Drama

by McKinney, Tina Brooks

  “I’ll pass,” I said, laughing. “I draw the line with men who think fine dining is found at the Waffle House.”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with WH,” Sammie interjected with attitude. “We have steak, pork chops…it ain’t all about breakfast; we have everything,” Sammie said.

  “Hey, don’t get your panties all twisted. If it pays your rent and keeps food on your table, it’s all good,” I said, laughing.

  There was something about Waffle House and the South that I had not gotten. Even though I could not see the attraction, that place stayed full at all hours of the night. Sammie only worked enough hours to meet her needs and spent the rest of her time sleeping and fucking. She would work a little harder when she got behind on her bills, but she basically relied upon her men folk to pay her bills. Every week, it was someone else stepping up to add some assistance. She would have any number of men stepping up to the plate to pay her bills and would spend her money on clothes and different hairdos. That was why it was especially hard for me to understand why Sammie still put up with Dickweed’s broke ass.

  One day she called me and told me that her lights were out. In the seven years that I had known her, she had never had anything turned off. She was constantly adding furniture to her apartment even though it was rent to own. I didn’t ask her what she spent her bill money on and she didn’t volunteer to tell me.

  “Gurl, it is February. I thought that they would not turn off your lights in the wintertime! How much is your bill?” I asked her. I would have floated her a loan if I had had enough money to cover it.

  “You don’t even want to know,” she said.

  “That bad?” I asked. Her silence told me it was.

  “I talked to Malcolm and he is going to send me some money in the mail this week,” she answered.

  “Yeah, but in the meantime, it’s too damn cold to be in that apartment!” I didn’t say anything for a few minutes as I was thinking. I did not really believe that Malcolm was going to come through since he still had not gotten that car he had promised Sammie a few months ago.

  “You can come spend a few days with me until you get your shit together. I don’t want Tyson and Kendall to get sick.” She must have had her bags packed because they were at the front door in fifteen minutes.

  “Thanks, girl, good looking out. We won’t be here but a minute. I’m waiting for Malcolm, you know, my fiancé, to send a check and then we’ll be okay,” Sammie said.

  I did not comment on the fact that she would not have a fiancé long if she kept hanging out with Dickweed but that was her business. She continued to juggle her men and somehow managed to keep them separate. Since her fiancé did not come to town often, it shouldn’t have been too hard, but Dickweed had the tendency to call up late at night for a quickie. On the nights her fiancé was in town, Sammie would turn off the ringer on the phone and let her answering machine pick up.

  This was a bold move since Dickweed felt that he had her so completely under his spell that he could just pop up at her house and it would be okay. I was waiting for the day that he showed up and she got caught. Mind you, I was not wishing that on her but it was bound to happen.

  By agreeing to help Sammie in her time of need, I wasn’t condoning her behavior. We had numerous conversations about the errors of her ways but she was quick to point out to me that she was a grown-ass woman. She would have to answer to all of her choices in the end, but I was not going to allow Tyson and Kendall to be cold. I felt confident that Sammie would pull a rabbit out of the hat any day and pay her bills, so I did not stress about it.

  All things considered, I guess I had my own blinders on when it came to Sammie. Had I thought about it in any great detail, I might not have offered her a place to stay. I should have told her just the kids were welcome. She was relying on Malcolm to send her money to pay her bills but this was also the same man that had promised months ago to get her a car and she was still waiting for it.

  I had a rather large three-bedroom house so I had the space, and at the time I thought that’s what friends were for.

  Sammie took Kevin’s room with Kendall. His room was larger than Keira’s. Tyson moved in Keira’s room with Kevin. Keira moved into my room with me. Tyson, who had just turned fifteen, did not much like the fact that he was sharing a room with a nine-year-old and spent most of his time sleeping on my sofa in the living room. If Kendall minded sharing a room with her mother, she never voiced her objections.

  Even though these arrangements were temporary, after a week, Sammie and her clan were wearing on my nerves. Kevin and Keira were completely outdone. They saw Tyson and Kendall doing things that they were not allowed to do and little by little they started to show out.

  Tyson was like a human garbage disposal, eating me out of house and home. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he threw his clothes everywhere and insisted upon eating in my living room. He left a trail of dirty dishes all over the place. While I was not anal about cleaning my house, I insisted that my kids pick up their toys after they finished playing with them. I also restricted their play area to their rooms. The living room, which was the first room you saw upon entering the house, was off limits except under my direct supervision. So you could imagine my annoyance with Tyson.

  “Sammie, I am about to ring your child’s neck!” I said completely frustrated.

  “Join the crowd,” she answered without asking for specifics. If she had threatened one of my kids I would’ve wanted to know why.

  “This is serious, Sammie. I don’t allow eating in my front room and Tyson refuses to accept that. If I find one more dish under the sofa I am gonna whip his ass. Now either you talk to him or the next time, it’s gonna be on between us!”

  “I told him what you said and he just looked at me like I was an alien speaking a foreign language,” she said.

  “That’s ’cause you accept that dumb shit. When I climb on his ass, you better not say a damn thing ’cause I told you it was coming.”

  “Good luck. He listens to you more than me anyway. Every time I try to say something to him, he gives me this poof-be-gone look.”

  I did speak to Tyson and he became good about cleaning up as long as I was around but when I left to go to work it would be on. He would attempt to hide his mess when I came through the door by shoving dishes under the sofa. However, it never worked because the genius would leave half the plate sticking out so I could see it. Part of me felt that he was doing it for attention, but he really didn’t want that type of attention ’cause I was ready to put it on his ass!

  I was going to work every day and coming home to dishes in the sink and no food on the table. Sammie would wait until I got there and ask what was for dinner or she would call me at work and tell me what to bring home. That shit got old real quick.

  Stressed out from the long week, I suggested we hit the club. We both got dressed and Tyson agreed to watch over things while we were gone. I had bought a fly dress at the mall earlier that day and was anxious to show it off. It was a shorty-short black dress, cut off on one shoulder and stopping right over my breast. The dress was positively suggestive and I looked good in it. I hooked it up with a rhinestone necklace and earrings. Sammie wore her old standby, a skin-tight white dress with a split straight down the middle that accentuated all her negatives.

  It was the same dress she was wearing the night she met Dickweed. The dress was so tight that she couldn’t wear panties. She insisted we stop at the grocery store so she could buy some pantyhose. I was pissed that she didn’t get them earlier, especially since she’d been home all day, but there was nothing I could do at that point but go along with the program.

  I pulled up next to her at the grocery store and crunk up the music. I was still applying my makeup and was anxious to get to the club. She opened her door with a loud creak and hauled her ass out of the car.

  “Come on,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

  “F
or what? I don’t need stockings. Just hurry up; we might not get a seat if you take too long.”

  “I don’t want to go in there alone.”

  Hell, I don’t blame her, I thought, but I also didn’t want to be seen with her in those bright lights ’cause people might think that we were hookers. My dress was not as raunchy as hers but it was definitely a party dress. Not to mention the fact that everybody’s mother and father was usually in the store at that time of night and would be looking us up and down like we had one-way tickets to hell.

  “Sammie, just go get the damn stockings and hurry up!” I really was having second thoughts about going to the club at that point. Yeah, I wanted to show off my new dress but I just didn’t want to show it off in the damn grocery store. And with Sammie exposing all her wares, it would be especially embarrassing.

  “No. If you won’t go in with me then we might as well go home!” She pouted. I failed to realize it until I was in the store that if she had gotten mad and gone home, I still could have gone without her ’cause I was driving my own car.

  I got out of the car fuming, making it a point to slam the door. Fortunately I did not lock it ’cause the keys were still in the ignition. I saw my coat on the back seat and quickly put it on. It was a short wool pea coat that made me appear like I was naked underneath since my dress was so short, but it was better than nothing.

  I did my best to lag behind Sammie, pretending that I was not with her, but that was an exercise in futility since no one wore heels to the grocery store at 11:00 at night. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and pull the opening on top of me. We got the stockings amid several lewd looks and finally set out for the club.

  I was determined not to let this little setback ruin my night. I was irritated, especially since I had to wait while Sammie put the stockings on in the car. But watching her trying to squirm into a pair of pantyhose behind the wheel of a car in that tight-ass dress made me loosen up. Now that was some funny shit.

  I found a parking space right in front of the club but Sammie had to park across the street. Just punishment, I thought, for her making me go into the grocery store with her. Ditching the coat, I met her halfway across the street so that she would not have to walk all the way across by herself. I did not mind being seen in this attire in front of the club ’cause there were a lot of women dressed just like me. We could not get a seat at a table but found two seats at the bar.

  I really didn’t like bar seats because I hated for my legs to dangle, but beggars can’t be choosey, and it sure beat standing up. The other thing that I hated about bar seats was the fact that every guy coming up to order a drink felt compelled to hit on you, and that night all the foul-breathed stinky mother fuckers were stopping right next to me. I just could not understand how they could have left the house without brushing their teeth and putting on deodorant. I tried not to be rude but when this particularly funky brother ambled up to the bar, I pulled out my perfume and sprayed it right in his direction. He was so drunk that he failed to get the message. He proceeded to ask me to dance. I told him thanks but no thanks.

  You had to be careful how you dissed niggas in the club these days. If you were too rude about it, they would get loud on you and start calling you every name but a child of God. I had seen a guy the previous week that just hauled off and smacked a sister ’cause she turned him down and I didn’t want any of that drama happening to me. I slipped off the stool when I heard my song start to play and went in search of a partner. I was not like the other women in the club always waiting for a man to ask me to dance. Sometimes I went and found my own partner.

  Dickweed came in about an hour later with a pretty, petite girl on his arm. I looked over at Sammie to gauge her reaction, but she acted like she did not even see him. I decided then and there to stop worrying about Sammie so I could get my groove on. I grabbed the first available man that passed my hygiene test and I was not disappointed. My partner was fine and could really move on the dance floor. We danced for three straight records before I had to beg out ’cause my feet were killing me. I liked him. His name was Norman Parker. I had seen him before but either he was tied up or I was. We always stared at each other but this was the first time that we actually had danced. He left me but promised to return later when I had a chance to rest up.

  Sammie was still on the bar stool when I got back.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “This shit is lame tonight. I think I might go home.”

  Translation—she hadn’t danced a lick and therefore the problem was the club, not her. Not to mention Dickweed was there with a fine young thing and wasn’t paying her any attention as usual.

  “The night is young,” I shouted in her ear while bobbing my head to the beat. I was really getting the full effect of the music since I was seated near one of the speakers positioned on the floor.

  “What are you drinking?” I asked, noticing for the first time the empty drink glasses in front of her.

  “Rum and Coke,” she responded while motioning to the bartender to bring her another one.

  “That’s a bit on the heavy side for you, ain’t it? You usually stick to wine coolers.”

  “Tonight, I need this,” was her response. I ordered a pina colada and turned my back to her and the bar as I continued to snap my fingers to the music. I was trying so hard not to let her dampen my good mood. I looked too good that night not to enjoy myself. I had been watching Norman for months and always had thought that I was not his type but that night I was on fire. Nothing was going to bring me down. I saw a couple of old partners enter the club but I was so far past them, I did not even break my stride.

  In my case, when I say partners I mean dance partners but in Sammie’s case, it more than likely meant fuck buddies. I saw one guy that I had slept with before but we both realized it was a mistake and maintained a cordial relationship. I didn’t hate on him and he didn’t hate on me. Almost every relationship that I had had ended on an amicable note. I still considered these people my friends and vice versa. The only exception to that rule would be my ex-husband. He said he still loved me but I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. I had made that mistake once before and had no intentions of doing that again.

  On the other hand, I didn’t know what Sammie did to her men ’cause once they had had her, they became obsessed. I couldn’t think of one of Sammie’s former lovers that she still considered a friend. If she ended the relationship they either hated her and wanted her dead, or they continued to stalk her, making her wish she were dead. I just didn’t understand. Sammie’s ex-boyfriends just might’ve run her down crossing the street. So when another of her old fuck buddies came into the club, I started sweating.

  Oh shit, I thought. Even though their relationship hadn’t lasted longer than a few months, he was very bitter and vocal about the breakup. She had duped him out of $750 and he wanted his money back. He felt like Sammie had just used him for his money and left him when things got tough which is essentially what she did. If he decided to nut up, I did not want to be in the way. I didn’t think he saw her but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Feeling the need to put space between them and me, I jumped off my stool and went off in search of Norman. I was so determined to find out what was really going on between us. All this staring and smiling was working on my nerves and I just had to know if he found me as attractive as I found him. I didn’t care what he was doing when I found him. He was going to be with me and that was it. As it turned out, he was alone, nursing a drink and welcomed the opportunity to dance again. We danced for the next hour and after we were through, we went off to a corner to get to know each other. I positioned myself so I could still see Sammie but I tried to tune her out as best I could.

  Norman was thirty-three and single with a little girl named Allison. He said he was still on speaking terms with his baby’s mamma and that he actively participated in Allison’s life.

  “So what does active participation mean?” I asked so that ther
e would be no misunderstanding on my part.

  “I get her every other weekend and one month during the summer,” he replied. “Does that bother you that I have a child?”

  “Quite the contrary. I like men who spend time in the life of their children. I have two kids myself, Keira and Kevin. I hate men that act like once the relationship is over with the mother, the relationship with the children has to end. It takes a special man, in my opinion, to continue a relationship with the child after the love or lust, is gone for the mother.”

  “And your children’s father, is he still in the picture?” he inquired.

  “Barely. He lives in Baltimore. When we were there, he put conditions around seeing the children.”

  “Conditions, I don’t understand.”

  “He only wanted to see them when I was around. Since we moved to Atlanta, he has been here twice. My problem is that he calls and makes all these promises to the children and I have to look into their faces when they realize it is all a lie. I hate that shit. I would rather he not call at all if he is going to continue to set them up for disappointment.”

  Norman nodded his head as if he could understand exactly where I was coming from. I didn’t want to get this deep and personal with him but it felt natural.

  “Dang, it’s like that, huh?” he said, laughing and trying to lighten the mood.

  “It’s really not funny when you are talking about your life. When we were first separated, he just wanted to come over to my house and hang out all damn day. I had enough of that when I was married to him. Although I didn’t keep him from the kids, I felt that if they were more of a priority to him, he would have made more of an effort before we left!”

  “How long have you been in Atlanta?” he asked.

  “We have been here since 1995. We got here right before the summer Olympic games so I guess that makes it six years!”

  Thinking about my ex caused me to zone out of the conversation I was trying to have with Norman and I had to shake myself and regain my focus. Besides, this was not the time, nor the place to be having this type of discussion. We were already yelling to be heard over the music. I switched gears and tried to put the focus on him.