“Hey Tara”
“Girl are you okay?” I laughed at her concern.
“Yeah...why?” Tara was always over dramatic. If I didn’t answer the phone she would assume the worst; that I had been in some kind of horrific car accident or something. She was across the country working for a publishing house as an artistic director, which was the perfect job for her crazy imagination.
“You haven’t seen the news? Some boy got killed near you.” Murders in St. Louis weren’t new. For many years the city always topped the list for murders in the US, but turning on the television, I instantly knew this was different.
“They say he was unarmed.” I tried to watch the television with Tara in my ear but all I saw was rioting, businesses being burned and people running from stores with bags of looted goods in their hands.
“Girl, I’m surprised you didn’t know about this. I know you wake up early.”
“Yeah well...I was occupied.”
“Occupied...with who?” I should have just lied and told her I was busy or something but I wanted to tell somebody. Unfortunately, Tara wasn’t the best person to tell about my interracial sexual prowess. Most of my friends were racist, ultra-conscious, ‘fight the power’ types that didn’t think interracial dating was cool. I never really took a stance. It didn’t matter to me that someone dated outside of their race. Being with someone white didn’t mean you were no longer black, or not black enough to care about the issues. But I couldn’t tell Tara that. I would be late for class listening to her go over what I did so instead I decided to lie on the fly.
“This guy from my class, I met him last night after he saved me from getting robbed.”
“ROBBED...Oh my God Alicia. I knew it was a bad idea for you to be there.” I rolled my eyes, grabbing my clothes and making my way to the bathroom.
“It wasn’t that bad Tara. I wasn’t hurt because Brian saved me.” I explained it all to her, how he charged in like the white night, although I left out his color. She would probably assume that he was black anyway so why tell her any differently.
“And then what?”
“Well one thing led to another and…”
“Oh my GOD!!” she screamed and laughed as I smiled at myself in the mirror. “How was it?”
I closed my eyes for a moment, flashing back to a few hours ago; how he had me crawling all over the bed, how it felt more like making love than some random fuck. It was as if we fit together, a feeling I had never felt but always dreamed of. My sex pulsed just thinking about him, yet I was here this morning alone, gossiping with Tara instead of lying in his arms. “It was...Amazing.” I peeked back into my bedroom looking at the haphazard sheets on my bed, reminiscing of the good times when I heard beeping on my line.
My Dad’s number flashed on the screen. He rarely called and never this early anyway so whatever it was, it must have been serious.
“I’ll call you back Tara.” Clicking over I heard a bunch of commotion on my Dad’s line.
“Alicia Marie?” my father grumbled before I could even say hello.
“Hey Daddy.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yes I’m fine...everything…”
“Those pigs killed a boy yesterday. Broad daylight and he wasn’t armed.” my father interrupted.
“Yes sir, I was just watching that.”
“Well I’m on my way to town. I’m coming to St. Louis.” I felt sweaty, panicked, and weak all at the same time. Just hearing that he was coming to town made me feel sick.
“Boarding for flight 892…” I heard in the
“Dad, where are you?”
“In the airport. I should be in town in a few hours. If you don’t mind, I wanna sleep on your couch for a few days.” I was going to throw up, I felt the grumbling in my belly as I dropped down onto my bed.
“Yeah sure...but what about Deidra.” That was his new wife, my stepmother, if that’s what you wanted to call her, but she was more step than mother.
“She will be coming in a while but I need to be on the ground now.”
“But…”
“I just wanted to call and let you know. Might as well see what my money is paying for.” He chuckled but I found nothing funny. My Dad loved throwing the fact that he paid for my education and my loft in my face. “Well, daughter, see you in a few hours.” The line went dead as I felt like my heart beating so fast that I thought it was going to jump out of my chest.
My father was still an activist; flying around the country to lend a hand in marches and protests. When he wasn’t doing that, he had speaking engagements with the many charities that he assisted.
He made lots of money, hence my loft and school being paid for, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to be here unexpectedly.
Breathe Alicia...Breathe… My hands were shaking. All I could think about was how my house wasn’t clean, how I had reading to do, and now I had class in twenty minutes and I wasn’t even ready. I had sex last night with a guy that I didn’t know and now he was gone, and before all of that, I almost lost my life to a robber that wanted my damn cell phone.
The tears came easily, flowing out of my eyes and down my face. I was overloaded just that quickly with my father coming. I always needed time to prepare. He was always so judgmental and harsh and that was the last thing I needed right now.
“Mom, why can’t you be here?” I cried to her like I always did. Wishing that my tears could evaporate the years that I lost with my mother; imagining that the tears could sink down into the ground and somehow revive her, bringing back the only woman who really understood me.
At times like these I wished heaven had a cell phone.
6
Black
A few days turned into a week, and now when I needed the house quiet to study it was filled with my Dad’s voice echoing through my space.
“I predicted it years ago. Remember I told you, St. Louis would be the site of the new civil rights movement.” It was early in the morning and my dad was screaming at the television giving me more commentary than the news anchors. He was listening the news but you would have thought that he was watching at a football game the way he was jumping up and down and screaming at the television. He had been here a week, and already he had gotten on every damn nerve I had and then some. Now I was getting dressed, with plans to hit school early and study all day in peace, but he was making that difficult.
I loved my Dad. He was the reason I was able to afford law school. Even though we had our differences, watching him now, in his element, made me kind of glad he was here. I definitely needed my space and time to study but with my mini breakdown earlier in the week, it helped to have someone I knew around.
“Dad, I gotta get ready. I don’t have time to look at this.” I told him as I got up, stuffing my books and computer into my bag.
“You act like you don’t care.” Here we go, I knew he was going to try to guilt me.
“Dad, I do care. But what am I going to do by going out there and marching? It is better if I keep going to school to be able to make change from the inside.” We argued about this all of the time. I was done with marches and sit-ins. I felt like those didn’t change anything.
“Why can’t you do both?” He was seriously asking me.
“Because I have 40 hours of studying to do every week. I don’t have time to go out there and I’m sorry I can’t get arrested like you do. If I get into trouble, I can kiss my license goodbye.”
He waved me off, knowing I was right but he still wanted me to show up so he could show off his daughter.
“But look, I was there. That’s where it all happened.” My Dad was giving me the play-by-play, pointing out every little destination on the broadcast. “That’s where they shot the tear gas.”
“But those bastards don’t even want to release his name. At least tell us who it was that shot the boy seven times. They can’t even say what he was being charged with.” I could have sworn that there was steam coming off his afro.
“Hold on a sec...I meant to ask you, where is Joe?” I rolled my eyes. I hated that I even introduced my Dad to Joe.
“Joe is a non factor.” That was all I had to say about that asshole. “He texted me so much the past week that I eventually had to block his number.”
“Okay Dad I’m gone.”
“Okay. Have a good day. I’ll probably be gone when you get back.” I thanked God for that; his being gone meant I could have a bit of my privacy back.
We hugged and with that I was gone, walking the few blocks to school, trying to practice what my therapist told me.
Take time to spend with yourself without any thoughts. Just you and know that you don’t have to take on the world. That was easier said than done, but I tried to keep those things in mind as I made my way to school.
Somehow I got through the week, with the help of my anti-anxiety meds, prayer, and the rest of the vodka bottle, and of course, submerging my brain in my books. Nothing was going to get in my way and my dreams of becoming a lawyer, but I did make sure to drop in and have a word with someone that wouldn’t judge me….
I told my therapist my deepest fears and for the first time in a while, I felt like someone really knew what I was going through. He told me that over the years he’d had many other law students as patients and that my breakdowns were normal. He even said I might have more of them and suggested I figure out some kind of release in between my forty hours a week of reading and studying, reassuring me that with my dad’s visit, it was reasonable that I would break down.
“Take some time for yourself and know that you aren’t super woman.” That was true but I had superwoman type goals that required me to be strong.
My Dad had been sleeping on my couch. Every morning, after he got in from protesting all night, he tried to have these intense conversations with me about what was going on. it was giving me some kind of mental overload.
Amidst the talk of gas masks, arrests, gunshots, and the police still withholding information about the shooting, I was at a crossway between utterly upset and just completely drained. I was now at the point where I wasn’t turning on the television or the radio. I was more like this walking robot, mechanically reading, studying, and sleeping. If I didn’t stay on top of school, I would fail and all of the money my Dad was paying for me to attend would go down the drain.
“You know, I sacrificed all these years so you could follow your dream. I saved up so you could do this.” He reminded me whenever I told him that I was busy and couldn’t handle to hear much else about the marches.
So I was thankful for his busy schedule since he got here. He seemed to be at my loft for only short spurts before he was out protesting and talking to officials.
Every night, as I sat up studying there was more rioting, more people marching in the streets, with tear gas being thrown at them and police armed like the military.
Still, the police department hadn’t announced the name of the officer that was involved in the shooting. All of it seemed like a weird episode from a television show but instead it was real life in Missouri.
Getting to school, I tried to put on my 1L cap and drift into law student mode. Things were getting more intense with everyday that passed since the shooting, and now the town was drawing international media attention with celebrities, well-known activists like my father, and government officials coming to town trying to calm the unrest, but people were tired. This shooting was horrible, but more like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, just like my breakdown the other day in a fit of rage. Brian wasn’t the reason. He was just one more on top of a hill of reasons that sent things crumbling down.
Everyone was on edge, the sight of police cars made me anxious and angry. But I chose to fight by staying focused on school.
I hadn’t seen my Dad much, which was a blessing. He said he would be here indefinitely, until he felt he wasn’t needed anymore, so I was stuck spending my days at school or at random coffee houses to make sure I didn’t run into him.
I just didn’t feel like hearing about the movement when I had procedurals and information to memorize. After my breakdown last week, I figured out that I needed to concentrate only on the things that mattered most, and those were myself and school, so that's what I was determined to do, no matter what was happening around me.
I was so focused on school, and staying busy enough that I didn’t have to see my father, that I sort of forgot about Brian. Or at least, I told myself to forget about him but now in class, I prepared myself to see him.
I arrived early and sat in the front and was soon surrounded by other people. I had my head buried in a book with my highlighter going crazy when I felt someone sit down beside me.
“Hey you…” It was Brian, his smile and those eyes so close to me that I could have kissed him but instead I looked back down at my book.
“Hello Mr. McGwire.”
“Wow...last name basis huh?”
“Yeah, that’s how I treat strangers.” I had rehearsed everything I was going to say to him down to my facial expressions and blasé attitude, but now that he was here in the flesh and close to me, I found all of those things harder to say.
I just avoided his eyes, trying to concentrate on the yellow highlight marks on my book instead of those intensely blue eyes.
“I’m sorry I left like I did.” He said as I looked around to see if anyone was paying attention but he didn’t care. “I got called into work and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Oh yeah, what do you do again?”
“I told you...I work for the state.” That was about as specific as saying he lives in the United States.
“You wanna be more specific?” Before he could answer, the professor walked in.
“Excuse me class. I regret to inform you that we are going to be cancelling class tonight.” Gasps dispersed throughout the room.
“There is talk of a protest near city hall next door and in the best interest of your safety we think it is best that we cancel class.” I wasn’t objecting to cancelling class. I had work to finish from my procedural studies class anyway.
“Well, that means we have the evening off. What are you doing?” He looked at me and I could tell what he was thinking, but there was no way I was getting sucked into that again, no matter how badly I wanted him.
“So check online, complete this week’s reading and there is still going to be an exam at the end of the week.” I hadn’t forgotten about the upcoming exam as I felt like I had my syllabus tattooed on my arm.
People grumbled and moaned but for the most part, the 1L’s were happy. This gave us more time to study and here I was looking my study partner in the face.
“So...you wanna go study.”
“I have been studying. You know these exams are pretty cut throat right.” In law school it was a whole new world, with test scores battling against your fellow classmates, but even though we were up against each other, we still had to pull together.
“I know it gets lonely reading that huge book by yourself.” He was right. It got repetitive and here we were barely into the second week and I was already feeling burnt out and it showed.
My hair was up in a messy bun on top of my head and I wore no makeup, while shorts and a t-shirt had become my daily uniform. I didn’t give a shit what I looked like. As long as I was clean, everything would take care of itself.
But now, staring into his blue eyes, I sort of wished that I had bothered to put a little bit of makeup on.
Walking out of the lecture hall with him behind me, I didn’t say a word. In my head, I was engaged in a battle of mental gymnastics trying to figure out if I wanted this man in my life.
“Earth to Alicia, hello.”
“Yeah Brian.”
“Please don’t tell me you're pissed at me?” I was pissed. I wasn’t sure that I had a right to be, but I was mad that he snuck out of my apartment and didn’t bother to call or email. Th
at spoke of some random booty call crap and I had enough problems without feeling thrown away and cheap in the process.
“Hello.” He turned me around right in the lobby. “You're not going to talk to me? At least let me mooch off your notes from the class I missed.”
“Look Brian...I don’t want anything to complicate my…” Someone from the street below yelled my name, interrupting me.
“Alicia…” someone called again.
Turning around, I thought I was seeing things. It was Joe walking towards me with a deep frown on his face.
“Oh my God…”
“Who is that?” I didn’t have time to tell Brian who it was before Joe was right in front of us.
“Joe what are you doing here?”
“You blocked my number, you haven’t answered my emails, I left a letter at your building...did you get it?” Brian stayed at my side as Joe looked back and forth from me to Brian.
“I’m busy Joe. I’m in law school, remember? I told you that I have other things…”
“But I love you…” My stomach boiled when he said that.
“Love...you don’t know shit about love. What are you talking about?” I thought back to the bitches that he cheated on me with, how it felt to find out that I wasn’t the only one, but one of SEVERAL women that he frequented.
“Can you give a second, man?” Joe said to Brian as if he was trying to excuse him in some kind of way.
“He doesn’t have to go anywhere...whatever you have to say to me you can say in front of my boyfriend.” The words just came out. I prayed that Brian would play along but the look on Joe’s face was too priceless for me to back down from the lie now.
“Boyfriend...this white boy is your boyfriend?” He chuckled a little bit but I kept a straight face.
“Yep...and unlike you he isn’t some lying, cheating, piece of shit.” Brian put his arm around me, following right into the act.
“Baby let’s go. My car is this way.” Brian said pulling me away.
“Nice meeting you Joe.” Brian said walking away and I smiled and waved leaving Joe in the middle of the sidewalk.
Black and Blue: BWWM Romance Page 4